LOS ANGELES (KTLA) — A Harbor-UCLA Medical Center surgeon who was accused of a variety of acts of misbehavior, including some that were sexist and racist, has been fired by the hospital, according to reports.
Dr. Louis Kwong, who was the subject of a lawsuit against the county filed last year, was terminated after a “two-year investigation that found he regularly gawked at the genitalia of anesthetized patients and never disclosed that he was being paid by a medical[l device company whose products he used on patients,” the Los Angeles Times reports.
Kwong’s colleagues told investigators that he “looked under the surgical covers of Black males who were under anesthesia and discussed the ‘genitals of the day’” and also “discussed his favorite sex positions and his preference for ‘auto-erotic asphyxiation,’” the Times reports.
Kwong also took over $700,000 from a company that makes joint replacements and never reported that conflict of interest to the county, investigators found.
While some of those allegations echo the complaints in the lawsuit, the Times pointed out that Kwong’s discharge notice never touched on his alleged bringing of a gun into an operating room.
However, Kwong, a volunteer deputy for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, was noted for bringing a personal knife into an operating room at least once.
“Your inappropriate, disparaging comments and actions were offensive, and created an uncomfortable, hostile, and demoralizing work environment for others,” Griselda Gutierrez, the hospital’s chief medical officer, wrote in Kwong’s dismissal notice.
Despite the complaints, which date back over a decade, Kwong’s alleged misbehavior wasn’t “officially reported” until 2021. That comes despite NBC News reporting on text messages that show “in 2016 the hospital’s CEO confirmed that the allegations against Kwong were ‘very serious’ and that the facility’s risk management unit was aware and involved.”
Kwong is appealing his firing to the Civil Service Commission, and his attorney, Michelle Finkel Ferber, said in a statement to the Times that he “disagrees with the County’s decision to terminate his employment and denies the manufactured allegations against him.”
“Dr. Kwong looks forward to defeating these sensationalized claims through the appeals process, not in the press,” Ferber wrote.
Until his firing, Kwong had remained on paid administrative leave.
“The slow pace allowed Kwong to receive more than a million dollars without working,” the Times reported. “In 2023 — a year in which Kwong didn’t work a single day — he was the eighth highest paid county employee, according to salary records posted this month.”