UCI Doctor Defends Actions : Medicine: Dr. Jose P. Balmaceda says he wants to reassure patients. He admits mistakes, but not those that he is accused of.
For the first time since his internationally acclaimed fertility practice at UC Irvine became entwined in suspicions of egg-stealing and record-hiding, Dr. Jose P. Balmaceda took the offensive Wednesday, denying any wrongdoing and seeking to restore a once-golden reputation.
Appearing tired and constrained by his own lawyer, who prevented him from answering many questions about his conduct and practice, Balmaceda said he has been beset with worry and sleeplessness since UC Irvine officials filed a lawsuit against him.
He said his main purpose in breaking his silence Wednesday was to reassure patients, some of whom have been in a state of panic since learning that UCI officials accused him of transplanting eggs without patients’ consent, conducting human research without permission, obstructing university investigations and prescribing a fertility drug without U.S. government approval.
“Right now the utmost thing is, really, if I could reassure and give peace of mind to patients,” said Balmaceda, 46. “They can feel confident everything was done up to the full capacity.
“We will not pretend we never made mistakes, but they have access to all information we can give them, and I hope they don’t lose their trust in us.”
He hastened to add that by “mistakes,” he did not mean the kind of devastating lapses in judgment and record-keeping of which he is accused.
Balmaceda already was one of the world’s foremost fertility experts nine years ago when he announced a Dream Team-like partnership with Drs. Ricardo H. Asch and Sergio Stone, fellow South Americans and equally esteemed fertility specialists who now stand accused with him.
The trio’s thriving practice at UCI’s Center for Reproductive Health has been admired throughout the world, but their hard-won reputation began to crumble two weeks ago when UCI filed the unusual lawsuit.
University officials also have placed Balmaceda and Stone on leave from their positions as professors in the department of obstetrics and gynecology, and severed all official ties to the doctors’ fertility work.
“For me, the hardest part has been the feeling of having nobody to face,” Balmaceda said of university officials. “I’m dealing especially with what is said to be the university, which I don’t believe is the university. It’s certain people within the university.”
Balmaceda, who fled his native Chile for the United States in 1975 as a political exile, compared his current troubles to the political oppression he suffered under Gen. Augusto Pinochet.
“It’s incredible, but I didn’t have [this] feeling since 1975, when I had to leave my country,” he said.
In the course of an hourlong interview, Balmaceda often wore a sleepy grin beneath his Hugh Grant-ish mop of hair, and he frequently expressed frustration at the limitations placed on him by his own lawyer, Patrick K. Moore.
Still, despite Moore’s concerns, Balmaceda managed to hint broadly that he thinks he might be caught up in some bureaucratic intrigue, or perhaps a personal vendetta.
“I would be very interested in addressing those issues when this process is more advanced,” he said, “because I think this may be the first part of a long story here.”
Asked to elaborate, he declined.
“I’m so intimidated by the whole issue that I have to be careful of what I say, how can it be used and so on.”
Known among colleagues as a man who can be charming and courteous in an Old World way, Balmaceda said he feels especially constrained by his inability to sit down with a team of fellow specialists and explain his behavior.
“Probably when I go in front of a clinical staff--I hope soon--I’m going to have to sit with my lawyer instead of sitting with three doctors and explaining myself.”
Among the slew of disturbing charges UCI officials have raised, the most damning could be that Balmaceda stole eggs from one woman and transplanted them into another, with neither woman’s knowledge or consent.
“I stand by my actions,” Balmaceda said. “I’ve been the director of the Saddleback Clinic for the last six years, and I’m absolutely confident that all our actions there have been--that we’ve run a clear-cut and good operation.”
Balmaceda is still the director of the Saddleback Center for Reproductive Health, a satellite of the UCI fertility center.
Asked if his denial included not only his Saddleback work but procedures done at UCI, Balmaceda was prevented from answering by his lawyer.
“He can’t speak personally to it,” Moore said. “He was there one weekend a month, or less.”
Moore then turned to Balmaceda and said: “You’ve been on record saying, either at UCI or Saddleback, you’ve never done a procedure where you knew the egg was donated by someone who wasn’t supposed to be donating it.”
Balmaceda nodded.
Despite some alarm among his patients, Balmaceda said these are productive days at the Saddleback clinic, which will continue to see patients even as the UCI fertility clinic prepares to close its doors.
“To tell you the truth, we’ve been very busy,” Balmaceda said. “When this thing started, we were in the middle of a series of treatments. During the last month, we’ve treated more than 50 women, and we plan to continue to treat people.”
Besides a steady stream of patients, Balmaceda said he’s been besieged by women who support him and believe in his integrity, he said. Many former patients have brought him their babies, gurgling reminders of the gift he bestowed upon them.
“You’ve been holding more babies lately than a politician,” Moore said to Balmaceda.
“A lot of people have felt the need to come by and show their affection and support,” Balmaceda said.
Some patients, he conceded, have called the clinic with concerns about the status of their eggs.
“I think it’s absolutely understandable,” he said.
To allay their fears, Balmaceda and his staff have sent a letter to every Saddleback patient, offering them a chance to examine their records.
All the turmoil has created extra work for his staff, plus several tense moments in his doctor-patient consultations, he said. And it has prevented him from following his favorite basketball team, the San Antonio Spurs.
But for Balmaceda, the son of a timber-mill owner who said he became a gynecologist because he has five sisters and no brothers, the most difficult challenge has been the university’s lawsuit, which seems to strike him as a personal betrayal.
“Eight years there,” he said. “with not a word of, ‘Colleague, I know you, what the hell were you doing,’ or even trying to punish you. Absolutely impersonal. Non-collegial is a way to describe it. And that’s what hurts the most.”
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Profile: Dr. Jose P. Balmaceda
Position: Director, Saddleback Center for Reproductive Health; UC Irvine professor of obstetrics and gynecology
Current status: On leave from UCI
Age: 46
UCI salary: $62,254
Hometown: Santiago, Chile
Education: Catholic University Medical School, Santiago, Chile; Rockefeller Fellow in reproductive biology at the University of Texas Health Science Center, where he also completed residency in obstetrics and gynecology
Professional background: Helped Dr. Ricardo H. Asch develop an infertility treatment called gamete intra-Fallopian transfer, or GIFT; specializes in pelviscopic surgery and reproductive endocrinology
Source: UCI Advancement Office, civil attorney Patrick K. Moore, Times reports
