WILLOWBROOK : Doctor Denied Promotion Because of Bias, Panel Finds
The county Civil Service Commission concluded Wednesday that Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center passed over a Latina doctor for promotion because of her race.
The commission voted 3 to 0, with one abstention, to accept a hearing officer’s findings that Dr. Amarylis Gutierrez-Pickett was passed over twice for promotion to head the hospital’s pharmacy department because of “discrimination based on race, ancestry, sex and/or other non-merit factors.”
The panel recommended that the county Department of Health Services appoint Gutierrez-Pickett to the position immediately. Attorneys for the hospital could not be reached for comment but Gutierrez-Pickett’s lawyer said she had been promoted to director on Monday.
In October, 1993, Gutierrez-Pickett was second in command of the pharmacy department but was denied promotion to the vacant director’s job. Administrators decided to bring in a pharmacy director from a different hospital.
She was passed over a second time in June, 1994, when the position again became vacant but she was only appointed acting director, the panel found.
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