He'd also raised concerns about the UPMC CEO's ties to a device company
A cardiologist who led a major UPMC institute says he was fired after reporting racist texts and a CEO's conflict of interest.
Dr. Hemal Gada spent nearly a decade working for what eventually became part of the UPMC system, starting at PinnacleHealth Hospitals in October 2015 as an interventional cardiologist specializing in structural heart interventions. After PinnacleHealth merged with UPMC in 2017, he rose to President of the UPMC Heart and Vascular Institute in Central Pennsylvania in June 2020. By August 13, 2025, he was out of a job — terminated, he says, because he refused to stay quiet.
In a lawsuit filed on March 31, 2026 in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania (Gada v. UPMC et al., Case No. 2:26-cv-00524-JFC), Dr. Gada alleges that his termination came in direct retaliation for two things: raising concerns about racist text messages exchanged by fellow physicians and reporting a potential conflict of interest involving the CEO of the entire UPMC system.
The sequence of events, as laid out in court filings, is worth noting for anyone in HR.
In mid-April 2025, a vice president told Dr. Gada he had filed an HR complaint about text messages sent by two physicians, Drs. William Bachinsky and Randy Hubbard. The messages allegedly included remarks that patients do not like to be treated by brown physicians with accents and wished luck with the effort to replace white doctors with brown ones. Dr. Gada raised his own concerns — first in an email to Regional President David Gibbons in late April 2025, then in meetings with HR representative Alison Beck in May 2025.
Within weeks, the focus allegedly shifted. On August 3, 2025, Beck informed Dr. Gada of an investigation into his professional conduct. He was suspended that same morning. Ten days later, the HVI Board convened an emergency meeting — without inviting Dr. Gada, despite his role as Board President. According to the filing, Dr. Bachinsky had attempted to solicit negative information about Dr. Gada from other Board members, physicians, and staff ahead of the vote. The Board voted to terminate him, allegedly without meeting its own supermajority requirement. A Medical Executive Committee hearing where Dr. Gada was to attend as part of due process, originally set for August 14, was cancelled.
The lawsuit also raises a separate but intertwined issue. In January 2025, Dr. Gada discovered that UPMC President and CEO Leslie Davis served on the Board of Directors of Edwards Lifesciences, a medical device company that sells devices to UPMC. According to the filing, SEC records show Davis received from Edwards compensation in excess of $300,000 in equity and additional compensation in both 2024 and 2025, and used the UPMC jet to attend Edwards board meetings. Dr. Gada reported these concerns to UPMC's Office of Ethics, Compliance and Audit Services and to its chief legal officer. His complaint was forwarded to the Conflict-of-Interest team and closed.
Dr. Gada is seeking reinstatement, back pay, and compensatory and punitive damages. No determination has been made on the merits. A jury trial has been demanded.
For HR leaders, the case raises uncomfortable but familiar questions: what happens when the person who speaks up becomes the person under investigation — and how quickly can that sequence erode trust across an organization?
