Ortho Surgeon Alleges Monopoly Interference With Residency Program

Scott F. Duncan, M.D., a South Carolina orthopedic surgeon, has filed a lawsuit against Myrtle Beach, South Carolina-area doctors alleging that they upended a residency program to keep out competition.

Dr. Duncan filed the lawsuit against the following: Myrtle Beach-based OrthoSC, LLC; orthopedic surgeon Gene M. Massey, M.D.; Myrtle Beach-based Grand Strand Surgical Specialists, LLC; Nashville, Tennessee-based HCA Physician Services, Inc., the parent company of Grand Strand Surgical Specialists (together referred to as HCA-PS); Grand Strand Regional Medical Center, LLC, the owner of Myrtle Beach-based Grand Strand Regional Medical Center hospital facility; and HCA Healthcare, Inc.

Dr. Duncan’s relationship with these organizations purportedly began when HCA-PS and HCA Healthcare (HCA) hired him as the program director of the graduate medical education (GME) orthopedic surgery residency program at the Grand Strand Regional Medical Center hospital facility. Allegedly, HCA-PS and HCA promised Dr. Duncan the position for at least five years.

According to the complaint, HCA-PS, HCA, and Dr. Duncan supposedly agreed that they would “work together to invite and persuade Defendant OrthoSC to provide the doctors who would serve as the faculty for the GME program.” Additionally, the complaint claims that HCA-PS and HCA also promised that if OrthoSC did not provide faculty for the program, then HCA-PS and HCA would hire their own faculty.

The complaint further alleges that Dr. Duncan initially reached out to OrthoSC physicians to recruit the doctors to serve as faculty to the program. Supposedly, “OrthoSC began signaling to Plaintiff that it was not receptive to having its own member doctors serve as the faculty for the GME program.” Dr. Duncan then allegedly began looking for applicants outside of the OrthoSC group.

Supposedly, Dr. Massey personally sent an email to an HCA executive expressing that the OrthoSC group would “immediately pull all of their surgical cases from the Grand Strand Regional Medical Center hospital facility and would take those cases to different [competing] hospitals or facilities” if the GME program continued and Dr. Duncan continued to recruit more outside orthopedic surgeons. Dr. Massey said in one alleged communication that “OrthoSC and its member doctors ‘did not want to be training their competition’ and that the GME program threatened Defendant OrthoSC’s monopoly in the relevant market.”

HCA-PS and HCA thereafter allegedly cancelled the GME program. Reportedly, HCA-PS and HCA then terminated Dr. Duncan’s employment agreement and later revoked his hospital privileges.

Dr. Duncan brought eight causes of action. He brought the following causes of action against OrthoSC and Dr. Massey: intentional interference with contract, intentional interference with prospective economic advantage, violation of South Carolina Unfair Trade Practices Act, and civil conspiracy. He also brought the following causes of action against HCA-PS and HCA: negligent misrepresentation, breach of contract/breach of covenant of good faith and fair dealing, promissory estoppel, and violation of South Carolina’s Payment of Wages Act.

Dr. Duncan requested a jury trial and is seeking an unspecified amount of financial damages.

As of the date of this article, the defendants have not yet filed a response.