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A former patient of local plastic surgeon Dr. Barry Eppley says he has made her life hell the past eight years. Eppley, in a recent lawsuit, says much the same about her.
The patient, Lucille Iacovelli, has posted a steady stream of videos and caustic comments on Web sites about a face-lift surgery Eppley performed on her in 2001. Ever since, the Massachusetts resident says, she has had extreme difficulty breathing, making her homebound, pained and impoverished.
The Web campaign has cost Eppley significant business, he complained when he sued Iacovelli for defamation and loss of business March 30. Eppley has practicing privileges and rents space at the Clarian Health hospitals in Carmel and Avon and co-owns the Ology spas in those facilities.
The lawsuit, pending in federal court in Indianapolis, already has turned nasty. Iacovelli accused Eppley's attorneys of pulling a "legal stunt" by fabricating a suicide threat from her and then notifying the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health. It sent police March 31 to take Iacovelli to a hospital.
Friends of Iacovelli have launched new Web sites criticizing Eppley, Clarian and even the U.S. District judge on the case, Sarah Evans Barker.
It's a sign of the times. Doctors are beginning to realize what most corporations have over the last decade: that business reputations are won and lost on the Internet.
There are now at least three dozen Web sites inviting patient reviews of doctors, and patients have embraced the offer. Doctors are beginning to respond in kind or in court.
"We are seeing more and more of this," said Kent Smith, a medical litigation attorney at Hall Render Killian Heath & Lyman in Indianapolis.
Lawsuits are one strategy to stop patients from commenting online. Other doctors have tried to pre-empt nasty comments by asking patients to sign a contract promising not to post comments about them online unless the doctor first agrees.
Other doctors haven't tried to stop online comments, but have instead joined in. In 2008, the 71-physician OrthoIndy practice...