Backers Rally to Asian Doctor Denied CEO Job

“I am sorry, Tom, but we are not ready for a Chinese CEO. Maybe five years from now.”

With those words, Thomas S. Chang says he was told not to apply for the chief executive officer’s post at the Garfield Medical Center in Monterey Park.

On Saturday, nearly 100 community leaders and residents gathered at Monterey Park City Hall to lend their support to Chang, associate administrator and chief finance officer at the 215-bed facility.

Those speaking said they were outraged by the statement and called on Tenet Healthcare Corp., Garfield’s parent company, to make a public apology to Chang and the Chinese American community.

“This kind of remark is an insult to all Chinese,” said Dr. Huo Chen, board chairman of the Chinese Physicians Society of Southern California. “Such remarks against one race shall not be tolerated.”

Tenet spokesman Lance Ignon said it was impossible to say “what may or may not have been said” because the matter is in arbitration.

“Through that process we are trying to discover what indeed happened to ensure that we reach a fair conclusion for all concerned.”

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Ignon said Chang was not promoted because he did not have as much administrative experience as the three finalists.

But on Saturday, Monterey Park City Councilwoman Judy Chu noted that Chang had done an outstanding job at Garfield and that he had received numerous company awards for his service.

“The statement is inappropriate and unacceptable, especially in a community with a majority Chinese American population,” she said.

For Chang, who has held the top financial post at Garfield for nine years, becoming a hospital CEO had long been his career goal, he said.

And he believed that he had a good chance at Garfield because he had received a written promise that he would be considered, he said.

So Chang said that when Joel Bergenfeld, a top Tenet official, told him the company was not ready for a Chinese CEO, he said he could hardly believe what he heard.

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“It was such a humiliating statement, not only to me but all the Chinese doctors, nurses and patients at Garfield,” Chang said.

On Saturday, former Monterey Park Mayor Lily Lee Chen said the organized opposition to what she said happened at the hospital “is not about Tom Chang. It is about the statement.”

Initially, she thought it was a mistake.

“How can this happen in Monterey Park in this day and age, I thought,” Chen said.

The former mayor and Dr. Chen said they know that two Garfield physicians had heard the same comment. “My shock turned to outrage,” Lily Lee Chen said.

“Today, our community is saying that . . . Garfield should be sensitive to the needs of the community and must be held accountable for its actions,” she said.

More than 60% of Garfield’s patients and 70% of its doctors are of Asian ancestry.

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Saturday’s proceedings were held in English and Mandarin because there were many in the audience, including senior citizens, who speak only Mandarin.

Chen, chairman of Garfield’s department of medicine, called on Tenet’s top official to make a written public apology to the Chinese community and to remove Bergenfeld from his current position.

In addition to elected officials from Monterey Park, Hacienda Heights and Diamond Bar, representatives of more than 14 Asian American organizations, including the Organizations of Chinese Americans and Japanese American Citizens League, were on hand.