Judge Blocks Demotion of Hospital Chief : Health: Court finds that officials violated guidelines in removing doctor as chairman of emergency medicine at King medical center.

A Superior Court judge Tuesday blocked the removal of Dr. William Shoemaker from his post as chairman of emergency medicine at Martin Luther King/Drew Medical Center on the grounds that hospital officials had not followed Civil Service rules in demoting him in December.

Medical center officials contend that they reassigned Shoemaker to meet the demands of an accrediting agency that has threatened to shut the hospital’s training program for emergency physicians.

Judge Robert O’Brien granted Shoemaker’s request for a preliminary injunction, stating in a written order that his demotion “may or may not be deserved, but must be accomplished in a proper manner, if at all.” The judge found that Shoemaker was appointed in 1991 to a six-year term and was removed without being given a reason or an opportunity to challenge the action.

The judge’s ruling may present a hurdle for county health officials trying to save the training program that now enrolls about 40 resident doctors who staff the hospital’s emergency room.

The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education threatened in November to revoke certification of the program because the hospital has failed to correct substandard conditions during the past four years.

The agency criticized the qualifications and commitment of the emergency department’s senior supervising physicians. They pointed out that Shoemaker is an excellent surgeon but not a board-certified emergency specialist.

Dr. Reed Tuckson, president of Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science, has said that he removed Shoemaker in direct response to the agency’s criticism.

Neither Tuckson nor Deputy County Counsel Stephen R. Morris was available for comment Tuesday. Shoemaker’s attorney, Rees Lloyd, hailed the order as a victory and said Shoemaker feels “very gratified.”

Medical Center officials had appointed Dr. H. Range Hutson, a board-certified emergency specialist at County-USC Medical Center, to replace Shoemaker while a nationwide search is undertaken for a new chairman. But O’Brien blocked that move too.