Orthopedics in Fort Dodge, IA

From the Fort Dodge Messenger:

All four orthopedic surgeons on the medical staff of Trinity Regional Medical Center have resigned. Wednesday the hospital formally accepted their resignations, which become effective on various dates early in 2006.

The four physicians are Drs. Emile C. Li, C. Mark Race, Samir Wahby and James D. Wolff, all affiliated with Fort Dodge-based Orthopaedic and Sports Medicine Specialists.

In the immediate future, however, Trinity will experience less than optimal orthopedic coverage of its emergency room. Additionally, starting early in 2006 some of the patients who expected to have surgery performed at Trinity by the surgeons who resigned will need to make alternate arrangements.

This is the latest, and possibly final, development in what in the last month became an increasingly confrontational dialogue between the hospital and the four physicians whose resignations have now been accepted. Those talks began several months ago and intensified in October.

A crisis point was reached when the four surgeons requested that the hospital permit them to provide less on-call emergency coverage than hospital officials said the TRMC’s medical staff bylaws required them to accept. Tibbitts said they advised the hospital that as of Nov. 1 they were no longer willing and able to provide 24-7, on-call response to orthopedic emergencies. He said that left the hospital with several days each month when no local orthopedic surgeon would respond to the needs of its emergency room.

This was a departure from the full coverage Trinity’s orthopedic physicians had provided for a number of years and precipitated a crisis for the hospital, Tibbitts said.