Cardiologist sues hospital after he was allegedly let go for sharing safety concerns
Interventional cardiologist Samir Elian, MD, has filed a lawsuit against Hurley Medical Center in Flint, Michigan, claiming that he was “wrongfully terminated” by the hospital after he shared concerns with leadership about patient safety. Elian believes the safety issues he was worried about helped directly contribute to poor outcomes, including death, for heart patients.
Elian was a senior cardiologist at Hurley Medical Center, providing teaching services and emergency room percutaneous coronary intervention coverage. He worked there for a 20 years, serving one term as the hospital’s cardiology chief and another as co-director of its cath lab. In addition, he owns and operates his own cardiology practice, often taking on patients he first treated at the hospital.
Reviewing the cardiologist’s claims
Elian’s lawsuit claims that he openly questioned multiple “operational issues” at Hurley Medical Center. For example, he emphasized to hospital leadership that not employing enough healthcare providers in specialized areas such as cardiothoracic surgery can lead to poor patient outcomes, including death. He also shared his fear that patients were dying “unnecessarily” because the hospital did not have proper quality assurance (QA) resources in place.
One specific incident mentioned in Elian’s complaint involved the hospital deciding not to renew its contract with a local cardiothoracic surgery group. Elian claims that he pushed back against this decision “after witnessing negative patient outcomes,” but the leaders in charge did not change their minds. In fact, they allegedly put trauma surgeons—not cardiothoracic surgeons—in charge of these patients when they presented for emergency care. Those trauma surgeons refused, according to the lawsuit, and the hospital chose to just transfer patients any requiring treatment instead of keeping a cardiothoracic surgeon on site.
In January 2024, a patient died at Hurley Medical Center while waiting to be transferred for a heart procedure. Elian claims that a cardiothoracic surgeon being on site, as he had pushed for previously, would have resulted in that patient being saved. The lawsuit also lists other patients who were allegedly impacted by this coverage choice in a similar way.
“Many unsuspecting patients like these have suffered harm or even death as a direct result of Hurley Medical Center’s decision to place profit over patient safety,” according to the complaint.
Elian’s lawsuit also claims he repeatedly pushed the hospital to “implement bare-minimum compliance programs” specific to cardiology from 2020 to 2024. In one instance, he said he and his colleagues voted to establish a QA structure specific to cardiology. Nothing changed, however, and “it was clear that saving money was more important that patient safety/outcomes.”
Elian believes patient outcomes would have been significantly better had the hospital’s leadership listened to his concerns and addressed these issues. He even engaged Flint’s mayor about the situation, but Elian claims the hospital’s leaders continued to block any efforts to bring about change.
Finally, Elian started to suspect his contracts were being terminated as part of an effort to silence him. He pushed forward, sharing his concerns again internally, but was eventually told that he had been terminated in 2024. His termination was linked to what Elian described as an “illegitimate QA investigation”—the hospital brought up allegations from anonymous complaints that included “serious allegations of professional incompetence.”
Elian’s lawyers are demanding a jury trial. They are seeking more than $75,000 in compensatory, economic and noneconomic damages, more than $75,000 in exemplary damages and more than $75,000 in punitive damages.
Hospital denies ‘baseless claims’
Laura Jasso, a Hurley Medical Center spokesperson, described this lawsuit as a “collection of false allegations that demonstrate a superficial understanding of cardiac services rather than any semblance of truth.”
“Hurley will aggressively defend his baseless claims and seek sanctions against him for having filed them,” she added.
Michael has more than 19 years of experience as a professional writer and editor. He has written at length about cardiology, radiology, artificial intelligence and other key healthcare topics.