News Briefs: Friday, December 3, 1999

Doc's suit against Health Sys. settled The attorneys for both parties refused to comment on the settlement, which came almost two years after the suit was initially filed in Philadelphia Common Pleas Court in January 1998. The lawsuit alleged that Health System officials first suspended and then fired Burke -- who suffers from depression -- from his position with Clinical Care Associates, the Health System's sprawling primary care network, in February 1997. The move defamed Burke and the suspension was a breach of contract, the lawsuit claimed. Health System officials originally responded to Burke's allegations by accusing the internal medicine specialist of abusing prescription medication and being unable to function as a doctor, forcing them to terminate his position. Burke denied the drug abuse charges, but his former business partner Isaac Tam said the charges were true. Tam was also named as a defendant in the suit. The lawsuit claimed that it was the Health System's mismanagement of his practice -- bought by Penn in 1994 during a time of massive Health System expansion -- that forced Burke to seek psychiatric help and begin taking anti-depressants and other prescription drugs. --ELaura McClure