COUNTERCLAIMS FILED IN SURGEON'S LIBEL, SLANDER SUIT.

Byline: Karen Maeshiro Daily News Staff Writer

A neurosurgeon who has filed a lawsuit accusing others of calling him incompetent was hired by Antelope Valley Hospital directors as part of a plan to oust neurosurgeon Dr. Harvey Birsner from the board, attorneys for a third neurosurgeon say.

That claim has surfaced in court papers in response to a libel and slander lawsuit filed by Dr. George Perdikis against Birsner and his former partner, Dr. Abdallah Farrukh, who is the chief of staff.

Former hospital director Hank Marvin, who was on the board with Birsner when it voted in April 1996 to approve the contract with Perdikis, denied the charge.

``I don't believe that was true. Certainly it wasn't true of anything I heard or saw,'' Marvin said. ``The hospital had been recruiting an additional neurosurgeon for some time. They had done a study of outmigration, and the indication was the outmigration of neurosurgery treatments was slightly over 50 percent out of valley.''

Perdikis filed the lawsuit last month in Lancaster Superior Court. He claimed he was libeled in an e-mail message by Birsner regarding surgery Perdikis performed in May on a patient with a brain tumor.

In the e-mail, Birsner said Perdikis ``got lost'' and was unable to find the tumor, according to the lawsuit.

Farrukh said Perdikis is not a competent surgeon, according to the lawsuit, in which Farrukh is accused of slander.

Farrukh's attorneys said Perdikis operated on a patient who is now blind and paralyzed. They sought dismissal of the lawsuit.

Farrukh's attorneys also said the state Medical Board is investigating Perdikis and his surgical privileges were at one point suspended.

State officials said Perdikis was formally charged in August 1996 with gross negligence in the deaths of two patients and accused in 1992 of performing unnecessary surgery on two other patients at Mercy Medical Center in Redding. The board's complaint, however, was withdrawn in December 1997 for reasons that were not made part of the public record, said Candis Cohen, spokesperson for the medical board.

``Usually we withdraw when additional information comes to our attention and the board feels it can't sustain its burden of proof, or we believe it's the fair thing to do,'' Cohen said.

Perdikis, through his office, refused to comment, but his attorney, Mitchell Green, said a withdrawal usually suggests the accusation is lacking in merit.

Farrukh's attorneys have ``taken advantage of the court file to throw a lot of dirt back at Dr. Perdikis,'' Green claimed. ``The one thing they are going to have to do in court is prove what they say.''

Farrukh's attorneys claimed in response to the lawsuit that Perdikis was hired in an attempt by the board majority to oust Birsner, who at the time was trying to fire former chief executive officer Bob Harenski.

``The majority of the board wanted to remove (Birsner) from the board but were reluctant to take this step because they were afraid he would stop performing neurosurgery at Antelope Valley Hospital,'' Farrukh claimed through his attorneys in the case. ``They were desperate to recruit a neurosurgeon so they could proceed with their plan to remove Dr. Birsner. (W)hen they were unable to recruit a qualified board-certified neurosurgeon, they turned to . . . (Perdikis).''

Birsner resigned from the board in May 1996 amid controversy over whether fees paid to him and his former medical group created conflicts of interest.

Birsner, who now lives in Utah, said by telephone that he did not vote to approve Perdikis' contract. ``I told the board this guy was a dud,'' Birsner said.

The filing by Farrukh's attorneys also alleged that Perdikis was not certified by the American Board of Neurological Surgery and was ``eventually not even eligible to become board-certified.'' Hospital bylaws require doctors on the staff to be board-certified in their specialties or eligible to become so, the filing said.

Attaining certification in neurosurgery is usually a five-year process for a physician, board officials said. Officials at the neurological board said Perdikis is not board-certified. They said Farrukh is board-certified and could not find any record of the hospital's other staff neurosurgeon, Dr. Nick Alapour. Alapour's office said he is board-eligible.