A Cumberland County cardiologist is claiming that he lost his job in retaliation for, among other things, accusing UPMC President and CEO Leslie Davis of having a conflict of interest involving her paid position on a medical device maker’s board whose scientific studies he criticized.
Interventional cardiologist Hemal Gada filed a two-count federal lawsuit against the Pittsburgh-based health system in the U.S. District Court of Western Pennsylvania on March 31.
In the suit, he cites both his criticism of clinical trial results tied to Edwards Lifesciences and his report to human resources of racist texts by doctors discussing the creation of a fellowship as factors in his firing in August 2025.
He is represented by Downtown law firm Ramage Lykos LLC. U.S. District Court Judge Joy Flowers Conti is presiding.
UPMC declined to comment Monday.
In the lawsuit, Dr. Gada said he reported texts exchanged by doctors, including ones suggesting that “patients do not like to be treated by brown physicians with accents and wishing luck with the effort to replace white doctors with brown ones.”
In addition, in LinkedIn postings in 2025, Dr. Gada was critical of Edwards’ five-year follow-up data on a clinical trial for its Sapien 3 heart valve, which is made from treated heart tissue from cows mounted in a metal frame.
The valves are implanted with minimally invasive surgery and the follow-up data analyzed their effectiveness in low-risk patients. The devices had previously only been...
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