Ex-astronaut sues VUMC for gender discrimination

Veteran of three Shuttle missions says hospital's chief medical officer denied career advancement, launched 'tirade' at her and assigned her to windowless office by men's room

Email | Print By E. Thomas Wood

Dr, Rhea Seddon took part in three Space Shuttle missions, logging more than 700 hours in orbit.

Former astronaut Rhea Seddon has filed a sex-discrimination lawsuit against Vanderbilt University Medical Center, a year after VUMC terminated her from a senior administrative position.

In her complaint, filed in Davidson County Chancery Court earlier this month and available at this link, Seddon accuses the hospital of failing to make "a concerted effort to provide outreach programs to recruit, encourage, and attract high-level female physicians to key clinical leadership positions" throughout her 11 years as assistant chief medical officer.

Most of Seddon's accusations, though, focus on one man: Her former boss, Chief Medical Officer Wright Pinson.

The lawsuit describes Pinson as having behaved in an "unreasonably confrontational" manner toward Seddon on a number of occasions. In one episode, during a meeting with VUMC's top clinical leaders including Vice Chancellor for Health Affairs Harry Jacobson, Pinson is said to have directed "a loud and prolonged tirade" at Seddon. "Afterward he called her into his office and continued to yell at her threateningly."

Seddon goes on to narrate the saga of her office-space difficulties in the three years she worked for Pinson. First, she asked him if she could move into a larger office next to hers that had become vacant. He refused and assigned a new male physician to the office.

When that doctor went to part-time status, she asked again for the office. Instead of letting her move in, Pinson reassigned her to "a windowless office which backed up to the men's restroom, approximately six feet by six feet in size," she asserts, calling the change "discriminatory and retaliatory."

Seddon says she received a faculty appointment in 2004 that entailed additional pay. In order to make the appointment effective, her superiors were supposed to turn in certain paperwork. She says they did so for male colleagues, but that her paperwork was never completed. When she pressed Pinson about the matter, Seddon claims, he told her not to "rock the boat."

In April of last year, Seddon completed an employee satisfaction survey that she thought would remain anonymous. She gave Pinson poor marks in the evaluation. In July, Pinson informed her that the hospital had eliminated her position, in what was described as a restructuring.

Seddon claims none of her male colleagues were terminated in "the alleged restructuring" and that she was singled out for "disparate treatment."

She seeks compensatory and punitive damages in the lawsuit, filed by Kevin Sharp and Stacey Middleton of the Drescher & Sharp firm in Nashville.

"Vanderbilt denies that it has discriminated against Dr. Seddon in any way and intends to vigorously defend the action against it," said John Howser, deputy director in VUMC's Office of News & Public Affairs.

Seddon came to Vanderbilt at the end of her 19-year career with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Selected to join NASA's first group of female astronauts in 1978, she served as a mission specialist on 1985 and 1991 Space Shuttle missions and payload commander on a 1993 flight.

While working under former Chief Medical Officer John Sergent at VUMC, according to her lawsuit, Seddon developed a "highly successful" patient safety initiative. She is now working with a company she started while at the hospital, Lifewings Partners LLC, which provides patient-safety training to hospitals.

Pinson, a surgeon, joined the Vanderbilt faculty in 1990. In announcing his appointment as CMO in 2004, Jacobson called him " a great clinician" and "a great administrator."