A cardiologist is suing UPMC for retaliation, claiming he was fired for reporting an alleged conflict of interest involving health system CEO Leslie Davis and what he said were racist text messages sent by colleagues.
Dr. Hemal Gada filed his complaint Tuesday in federal court in Pittsburgh against both UPMC and its Pinnacle Health Cardiovascular Institute.
He is also claiming a violation of the state Whistleblower Act.
A UPMC spokesperson declined comment Friday.
Gada, who lives in Cumberland County, began working for Pinnacle Health in October 2015 as a cardiologist, specializing in structural heart interventions.
Pinnacle merged with UPMC in 2017, the suit said, and Gada served as president of the Heart and Vascular Institute at UPMC Central Pennsylvania from June 2020 until his termination in August.
According to the complaint, UPMC launched an investigation into Gada’s social media use in late 2024. On Dec. 23 of that year, Gada noticed several members of UPMC’s leadership looking at his LinkedIn profile.
Gada posted frequently, with some posts receiving tens of thousands of views.
It was on LinkedIn, the lawsuit said, that Gada had been critical of Edwards Lifesciences, a $6 billion structural heart innovation company.
UPMC CEO and President Leslie Davis serves on its board.
Structural heart procedures refer to minimally invasive treatments to address problems with heart valves and walls.
Gada’s lawsuit said he had been “outspoken” on LinkedIn about “issues with data transparency surrounding research” on a particular heart valve made by Edwards.
Around that time, the lawsuit continued, Gada learned there had been an external complaint to the UPMC compliance hotline prompting an investigation into his social media use.
Then, the next month, the lawsuit said, Gada learned that Davis serves on Edwards’ board of directors.
Board compensation
Davis, who as president and CEO oversees the $34 billion UPMC health system, joined Edwards’ board of directors in 2024.
The complaint said Davis’s position with Edwards is paid.
A filing in March by Edwards with the Securities and Exchange Commission shows Davis last year earned $85,000 in cash and $259,943 in stock from her board position.
When Gada learned that Davis was compensated, he filed a report with UPMC’s Office of Ethics, Compliance and Audit Services and forwarded a compliance hotline number to several colleagues.
On Jan. 13, 2025, the lawsuit said Gada received a call from UPMC leadership telling him the investigation into his social media use revealed no wrongdoing.
While he was relieved, it continued, that same day, Gada emailed UPMC’s chief legal officer, again raising questions about Davis’ role at Edwards Lifesciences.
“… I am still concerned about the origins of the investigation and the potentially significant conflict of interest (which appears undisclosed to a large degree) due to the CEO’s potentially compensated board appointment,” he wrote.
Soon after, the lawsuit said, Gada learned that Davis had used UPMC’s jet to attend Edwards Lifesciences board meetings.
Within days, the lawsuit continued, Gada was told his complaint, which had been forwarded to a “Conflict of Interest team,” had been closed.
Gada’s lawsuit claimed the cardiologist had reported “wrongdoing” or “waste” by alerting others to Davis’ involvement with Edwards, which he said sells medical devices to UPMC.
“Ms. Davis’s compensated position on the Edwards’ board impacts UPMC’s institutional independence in being able to justify medical device use in a scientifically uncompromised way,” the complaint alleged. “Given Ms. Davis’s board position, she would necessarily be required to refrain from involvement in any dealings with Edwards, an entity with which UPMC engaged in multi-million dollar transactions across the health system.”
Text message concerns
In mid-April 2025, another cardiologist told Gada he had filed a human resources complaint over racist text messages sent by two other doctors at the institute.
The texts, according to the lawsuit, “included comments indicating that patients do not like to be treated by brown physicians with accents and wishing luck with the effort to replace white doctors with brown ones.”
In late April 2025, Gada emailed a complaint about the racist texts to the regional president and later met with UPMC Central Pennsylvania’s human resources officer.
Several months later, in August, the lawsuit said, Gada learned that human resources was conducting an investigation into his professional conduct, including alleged clinical performance concerns.
He was placed on a two-week suspension and fired 10 days later.
Gada’s lawsuit seeks his reinstatement, as well as monetary damages.
“Plaintiff made a good faith report of wrongdoing by Ms. Davis where such wrongdoing was not of a merely technical or minimal nature of a federal or state statute or regulation,” the lawsuit said. “Rather than addressing plaintiff’s reported concerns, defendants dismissed his complaint and retaliated against plaintiff by terminating him.”