A secretly recorded conversation between the head of UPMC’s department of cardiothoracic surgery and the doctor treating him with suboxone for a previous problem with prescription narcotics is at the center of a hearing in Allegheny County Common Pleas Court.
Dr. James Luketich, who is the subject of a federal whistleblower complaint, testified on Monday that he suffered a shoulder injury in the 1980s while attending medical school at the University of Pennsylvania and took prescription narcotics. Concerned he was developing dependency, Luketich said he sought and received help. Then, in 2008, he was prescribed suboxone for pain stemming from a slipped disc.
During the injunction hearing, Luketich said he does not know how the recording was made but suspects it could have been a voice-activated recorder taped under a table in the room where the conversation occurred. He believes two previous colleagues recorded him as retaliation for him expressing concerns about them having an improper relationship and accusing them of potential academic misconduct.
Those two colleagues, Dr. Jonathan D’Cunha, who filed the whistleblower complaint against Luketich in federal court in 2019, and Dr. Lara Waleed Schaheen, no longer work for UPMC.
D’Cunha, who left in 2019, now serves as the head of cardiothoracic surgery at the Mayo Clinic in Phoenix. Schaheen works in...
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