Two Detroit-area cardiologists have been awarded more than $10 million after a federal judge upheld an arbitrator’s decision that Detroit Medical Center (DMC) and its parent company, Dallas-based Tenet Healthcare Corp. (Tenet), acted with malice in firing them as retaliation for reporting violations at the facility. The arbitrator also reinstated both doctors’ medical staff privileges at three DMC hospitals for at least a one-year period.

Drs. Amir Kaki and Mahir Elder were medical leaders and top admitters and proceduralists for patients with heart problems when they were fired from DMC on Oct. 1, 2018. They subsequently filed suit in the U.S. District Court in Detroit, alleging they reported to DMC executives multiple problems of dirty instruments, unnecessary procedures on patients performed by other doctors, lack of nursing staff, cutbacks of critical lab and support services, and failure of top DMC and Tenet executives to investigate alleged incidents of Medicare and Medicaid fraud.