Anesthesiologist, practice ordered to pay $500K for mocking sedated man

Insulting people certainly isn't very nice, but a recent incident in Virginia shows that it can also be quite costly.

A medical practice has been ordered to pay $500,000 to a man who, while sedated, was relentlessly mocked by an anesthesiologist under their employ.

The patient, who has opted to remain anonymous, used his phone to record his colonoscopy procedure so he could play back medical instructions later.

Upon listening, he learned that from the moment he drifted off anesthesiologist Tiffany Ingham and other members of the team shared harsh comments about him.

They included words such as 'retard' and 'wuss'.

At one point, Ingham said, %shareLinks-quote="After five minutes of talking to you in pre-op, I wanted to punch you in the face." type="quote" author="anesthesiologist Tiffany Ingham" authordesc=""%

She also suggested to the doctor preforming the procedure to fake an emergency to get out of having to talk to the patient during post-op.

The man filed a lawsuit, asking for compensation of over a million dollars.

He was ultimately awarded $500,000 by the jury, as one member didn't believe he was entitled to any payout at all, while another thought he should receive more.