More than a year after Harbor-UCLA Medical Center’s orthopedics chief was fired for misconduct ranging from offensive sexual remarks to financial improprieties, he has quietly brokered a deal with Los Angeles County to help salvage his reputation.

A seven-page agreement finalized Nov. 4, 2024, and recently obtained by the Southern California News Group, shows the county Department of Health Services rescinded Dr. Louis Kwong’s firing and will allow him to represent that he retired from Harbor-UCLA, a 570-bed public teaching hospital and Level 1 trauma center in the unincorporated West Carson area.

In exchange, Kwong has agreed to release DHS from future lawsuits and claims connected to his termination.

Kwong also has committed to cooperating with DHS in any investigations or legal matters he is involved in and will receive free legal representation from the county. He could not be reached for comment.

Kwong was hired in 2007 and, eight years later, was appointed chair of the Orthopedic Department and director of the Orthopedic Residency Program at Harbor-UCLA, which is owned by Los Angeles County and operated by DHS. Harbor-UCLA doctors are on the faculty at UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine and oversee medical residents trained at the facility.

Kwong was fired from Harbor-UCLA on Feb. 28, 2024, amid a litany of misconduct allegations, including ogling the genitalia of anesthetized Black male patients, inappropriate sexual banter, and failing to report over $738,000 in payments from orthopedic device manufacturer Zimmer Biomet, whose joint replacement implants he routinely used during surgeries.

County backtracks on firing

The misconduct claims against Kwong appear to mirror pending lawsuits from orthopedic surgeons Dr. Haleh Badkoobehi and Dr. Jennifer Hsu, who, along with Harbor-UCLA’s former director of emergency medicine, Dr. Madonna Fernandez-Frackelton, are suing the county for ignoring their complaints.

They are seeking monetary damages for various employment violations, including retaliation, hostile work environment, harassment, and gender and pregnancy discrimination.

Will Reed, an attorney representing Badkoobehi and Hsu, called the DHS settlement stunning.

“Instead of trying to make things right with our clients, the county is aligning itself with Kwong, someone whom it fired after its own investigation proved that he engaged in egregious conduct and sexual harassment — some of the worst we’ve seen outside of sexual assault,” Reed said Friday, May 16.

“At the end of the day, the county seems to care far more about shielding itself from pecuniary liability, than to make things right with our clients, who have suffered so much and continue to suffer greatly at the hands of Kwong and, by proxy, the county for what is alleged to be a deplorable — and very intentional — failure to act.”

He added that instead of “championing women and taking responsibility for its acts, the county has chosen to aggravate the harm” caused by Kwong by attacking and tearing down Hsu and Badkoobehi.

Fernandez-Frackelton and her attorney, Carol Gillam, did not respond to requests for comment.

The DHS concessions appear to be an about-face from the scathing conflict-of-interest rebuke Harbor-UCLA Chief Medical Officer Griselda Gutierrez delivered to Kwong in a confidential discharge notice obtained by the Southern California News Group.

Gutierrez blasted Kwong’s alleged dishonesty in concealing a six-year consulting gig with Zimmer Biomet, which has a contract to outfit Los Angeles County hospitals with its products.

Probe launched after tip

The investigation into Kwong’s alleged misconduct and financial improprieties began with a tip to the Los Angeles County Department of Auditor-Controller on Dec. 23, 2021.

Investigators determined that from 2016 to 2022, Kwong failed to disclose his employment with Zimmer and received $738,648 from the company for consulting, royalties, license fees, travel, lodging, food and beverages. He also told investigators that he flew twice with Harbor-UCLA residents on a private plane to Zimmer’s headquarters in Warsaw, Indiana.

Zimmer officials said the company severed ties with Kwong and disclosed consulting fees or royalties under the Sunshine Act, a federal law designed to provide transparency about financial relationships between health care providers and pharmaceutical or medical device manufacturers.

Kwong signed a form from the county in 2021 and 2022 stating he did not engage in or plan to engage in outside employment. He later told investigators he wasn’t aware he had to disclose his role with Zimmer.

Kwong also worked as a researcher for the Lundquist Institute, a nonprofit biomedical research organization based on the Harbor-UCLA campus.

“For starters, your blatant failure to disclose outside employment with Zimmer Biomet and Lundquist, despite knowing the department’s associated policy, are clear and intentional violations,” Gutierrez said in the discharge notice. “Zimmer Biomet and Lundquist not only compensated you for your work but provided you with financial incentives for business referrals, which created a clear conflict of interest since the department had contracts with them.”

Attorney denies misconduct claims

Kwong’s relationship with Zimmer and the Lundquist Institute was generally known. He did not create a conflict of interest or violate any policy, his attorney, Michelle Finkel Ferber, said in a March 20, 2024, petition requesting a Los Angeles County Civil Service Commission hearing. The hearing request was withdrawn due to the DHS settlement.

“This was a misunderstanding on Dr. Kwong’s part regarding county policy governing outside employment and does not represent or indicate any intent to conceal the relationship with Zimmer Biomet,” the petition states.

As part of its settlement with Kwong, DHS sent a letter to Zimmer stating Kwong had previously submitted a conflict-of-interest statement to the county, disclosing his financial interest in the company.

Ferber also stated in the petition that Kwong was not an employee and did not receive payments or financial incentives from the Lundquist Institute. All Harbor-UCLA medical staff who participate in clinical research are required to be members of the Lundquist Institute. Although they may draw a salary from research funds, Kwong offered his pay to fund an orthopedic clinical research coordinator position at the medical center, Ferber said.

16 violations of county policy

The discharge notice from Gutierrez also details 16 incidents in which Kwong allegedly violated county policy by exhibiting inappropriate conduct toward others based on sex, race, gender and sexual orientation and failed to report potential equity issues involving employees under his supervision.

Specifically, the notice claims Kwong:

• Made comments that Asian men have small penises.
• Commented on female patients’ bodies, including genitalia grooming.
• Told a physician resident he was into autoerotic asphyxiation.
• Discussed his sexual encounters with women.
• Identified the race of two residency candidates in comparing their qualifications.
• Failed to report a Facebook post from a physician indicating she had visited a strip club with interns.
• Did not report a doctor who was romantically involved with a patient or another physician who used a racial slur in a text message.

The discharge notice also alleges that, on multiple occasions, several surgical team members witnessed Kwong lifting the surgical covers of African-American male patients to “check under the hood” and gawk at their genitalia for nonmedical purposes while they were under anesthesia.

Ferber, who denied the misconduct allegations, said the check-under-the-hood claim came from a single physician, while nine other team members denied the allegation, and one directly contradicted the statement attributed to Kwong.

“It is clear, even from the results of the department’s interviews, that Dr. Kwong is not guilty of the incredibly offensive acts of which he was accused,” Ferber said.