Doctor's suit says residency marred by ethnic bias

A Harvard Medical School assistant professor who was training to be a psychiatrist filed a federal lawsuit this week alleging that while serving in a residency program run by Harvard at a Brockton veterans' hospital, he was discriminated against because he is from India.

Rajendra Badgaiyan, an assistant radiology professor for Harvard at Massachusetts General Hospital, alleges in his suit that he may not get his license to practice psychiatry because the director of the residency program was biased against Indian doctors and therefore made false claims about his performance.

The suit filed in US District Court in Boston names Harvard University, the secretary of the US Department of Veterans Affairs, and Grace Mushrush, a doctor and director of Harvard's South Shore Psychiatry Residency Training Program at the VA Medical Center in Brockton. The suit seeks unspecified damages.

Boston attorney Paul Merry, who represents Badgaiyan, said his client did not want to comment on the suit. "We're still hoping to resolve it without further litigation," Merry said. "He wants to be able to pursue his career. He wants to not lose his fellowship. He wants to be able to go forth and heal."

Another federal lawsuit was filed against Harvard and the Department of Veterans Affairs last year by a woman who alleges that when she tried to enter the same psychiatric residency training program at the Brockton VA Hospital, she was discriminated against because she was pregnant.

In that suit, which is pending in US District Court in Boston, Moira Locke of Honolulu says that Mushrush offered her a position in the residency program on May 30, 2002, then withdrew the offer two days later after Locke told her she was pregnant. Locke is seeking $10 million in damages.

A spokeswoman for Harvard Medical School, Judith Montminy, would not comment on the allegations in either suit. She said Harvard has yet to be served with a copy of the complaint filed by Badgaiyan on Tuesday, but when it is received "we will be looking at the matter carefully."

Neither Mushrush nor Veterans Affairs officials in Brockton and Washington returned telephone calls seeking a response to the lawsuits.

Assistant US Attorney Rayford A. Farquhar, who is defending the Department of Veterans Affairs against Locke's suit, said it is the government's policy not to comment on pending cases.

Badgaiyan, who earned his medical degree in 1982 at Gandhi Medical College in Bhopal, India, says in his suit that he was ranked number one in his class and was successful in the field of neuroscience before deciding to specialize in psychiatry.

The suit alleges that after Badgaiyan joined the residency program in Brockton in 2001, Mushrush made "disparaging remarks concerning physicians of Indian extraction and about the quality of medical institutions and medical education in India."

Badgaiyan alleges that Mushrush forced him to repeat training that he had already passed with a grade of "outstanding" or "good," and that she manipulated his schedule so that it took him six to nine months to complete components of the program that could have been finished in a month or two.

The suit accuses Mushrush of providing false and derogatory information about Badgaiyan to the Massachusetts Board of Registration in Medicine, which has delayed his licensure to practice psychiatry and may prevent him from getting it. As a result, the suit says, Badgaiyan is in jeopardy of losing a prestigious fellowship that he was supposed to start this year.

Badgaiyan's suit also says that he complained to Harvard about Mushrush and filed a formal complaint with the Department of Veterans Affairs, which was rejected.

The lawsuit accuses Mushrush of defamation, retaliation, and discrimination and accuses Harvard and the Department of Veterans Affairs with discrimination and breach of contract.

Shelley Murphy can be reached at shmurphy@globe.com.