God-awful medicine isn’t the only thing that flourishes at Coney Island Hospital.
The Brooklyn medical center, which consistently ranks among the nation’s worst, also allows harassment to thrive there, a new lawsuit charges.
The union for podiatry resident Bella Mednik, 33, says in the suit that its member was canned in August after a three-year stint at the hospital because she complained about the harassment.
The court papers cite a series of off-color text messages allegedly shared among the hospital’s podiatry team.
One cartoon shows a boy with a chicken that says, “Are you looking … at my c–k?”
A second exchange about a patient starts off with, “Well f- -k I hope she’s ok and her toes aren’t falling off” and then speculates that the sufferer is a “drug user” who “cooks meth.”
An arbitrator had ruled that Mednik violated nearly a dozen hospital protocols, including failing to correctly document the vital signs of a patient with gangrene in July 2016, leading up to her firing. Thanks to the mistake, Mednik didn’t realize the patient was going into septic shock, the arbitrator said.
Mednik also had attendance issues and left a patient alone in the ER in February 2017, the arbitrator said.
Mednik’s union claims that all of the allegations “are unproven,’’ yet it produced no evidence to show she didn’t leave the ER patient unattended, wrote arbitrator Sandra Meckler in her report. As for Mednik allegedly botching the gangrene sufferer’s case, the union responded that the doctor who accused her of the inaction didn’t like her because she’s Jewish, Meckler said.
The union neither admitted nor denied the claims of Mednik’s absenteeism, Meckler added.
But lawyers from Mednik’s union say Meckler made it all about personality, judging the resident on her “ability to work well with others,’’ according to the legal challenge filed in Manhattan Supreme Court.
The union says Mednik was actually fired in retaliation for blowing the whistle on the workplace harassment back in February 2017.
The union is suing to overturn Mednik’s termination and for other damages.
A spokesman for NYC Health and Hospitals, which runs the Brooklyn facility, said, “Dr. Mednik’s termination followed a series of performance issues and unsuccessful attempts at corrective action, and it was consistent with labor agreement protocols and upheld by an independent arbitrator.
“We wish Dr. Mednik the best in her future professional endeavors,” the spokesman added.



