Former OSF staff allege neurosurgery patient neglect

Three former OSF Saint Anthony Medical Center operating room leaders say they raised repeated safety violations in the neurosurgery unit—from surgeons reportedly leaving patients unattended under anesthesia to counts not completed and sterile technique breache

Rockford’s OSF Saint Anthony Medical Center has a new fight playing out in a quiet conference room—after the operating room, the place where seconds matter, was left behind.

On Tuesday. three former OSF employees sat in their attorney’s office in Oak Brook and traded the pressure of surgical shifts for something harder to schedule: telling their story in public. “It’s been really emotional. It still is,” said Cindamon Proffitt, who served as operating room manager at Saint Anthony from 2018 through 2025. “It’s just hard. You want to do the right thing for the patients.”.

Proffitt joined two former operating room leaders in a lawsuit against the medical center. Sofia Gudino. previously an operating room manager. and Tina Peppers. a former director of surgical services. allege the hospital put profit and efficiency over patient health and safety—claims they say are rooted in what they witnessed and reported while working in the neurosurgery service line.

The women say their concerns were not vague. They describe a trail of incidents and the steps they took to report them—through “multiple channels. ” including incident reports. OSF’s Integrity Line. and email or verbal reporting. Yet they claim that after repeated reports. “no investigations were initiated. no corrective actions were taken. and the unsafe behavior continued.” They also allege retaliation after they kept speaking up. including being warned to stop filing reports and being assigned disproportionate neuro-only duties.

At the center of the lawsuit are two neurosurgeons and their actions between 2023 and 2025, the complaint says. The women say they became aware of “repeated and dangerous safety violations within the hospital’s neurosurgery service line.”

Peppers described how her team felt when a new group of neurosurgery providers arrived. “They were struggling a little bit to follow rules.”

One allegation involves patients reportedly left unattended on operating tables while under anesthesia.

The lawsuit describes a specific instance on February 3, 2025, when one surgeon allegedly left a patient for nearly an hour. Another alleged case is dated April 17, 2025: another doctor allegedly departed the OR and an induced patient to attend a meeting that lasted 37 minutes.

Proffitt said the problem wasn’t just the absence—it was what that absence meant. “The patient’s asleep. They can’t advocate for themselves,” she said, adding that the longer a patient stays on anesthesia, “the higher the risk for postoperative complications.”

She also described the billing impact as part of the harm, saying patients may have been billed for time when a surgeon wasn’t in the room for the alleged period. “They’re being billed for that time by the minute,” Proffitt said. “Efficiency is important, but patient safety is number one.”

Another concern, the women say, appeared October 12, 2023. They allege a surgeon was found asleep against a surgical microscope just before an operation was to begin.

Peppers said she warned a chief medical officer about proceeding, but the surgery allegedly continued. “This was an elective procedure, not emergent in any way,” Peppers said.

The lawsuit also points to other safety concerns reportedly raised by the former employees. including failure to complete surgical counts and breaches of sterile technique. hostile and erratic behavior by neurosurgeons that jeopardized staff safety. improper use of an unapproved medical equipment—the synaptive tractography system—and intimidation of nursing staff who questioned unsafe practice.

Gudino said she came to OSF with a certain standard in mind. Before the alleged incidents. she described the hospital’s values as taking care of patients “as if those patients are your loved ones that are on the table.” After raising concerns and not seeing what she calls real follow-through. she said it became hard to believe.

“Anything that seems that it’s off in any sense of the word, we should always follow up on so that you can make it better for the next patient that’s in there,” Gudino said.

Peppers described how the alleged lack of action weighed on her while she was still in the job. “I got very stressed because I felt like I couldn’t protect my frontline staff. I felt like I couldn’t protect my managers. I felt like I didn’t have a voice in keeping my patients safe,” she said.

The women say they didn’t just fear retaliation—they say it arrived in response to their reporting. They allege their boss’s message to her was blunt: “We can’t afford to lose another surgeon.”

One detail that brings the case beyond the walls of the hospital is what the attorney says this could mean for patients and the public. Antonio Jeffrey, who represents the former employees, said justice in the case is about public safety. “It’s about ensuring public safety,” Jeffrey said. He also said he hoped the lawsuit would force change at OSF.

Jeffrey felt his clients were owed millions of dollars in damages based on their experiences, and Gudino added, “I want every patient out there to know that we always fought for them.”

The women say the environment also included sexual harassment allegations, which they describe as helping create a workplace that “became intolerably hostile.” They allege they were verbally abused and ostracized, and that supportive staff were warned to stay silent.

“They were forced out as a result of the management there at OSF,” Jeffrey said.

By May 2025, the trio left their positions at Saint Anthony. All but one of the women remain in the medical field.

Proffitt said her own attempt to move on has been difficult, describing how it has affected her personally. “I’ve applied to over 34 positions. I have two Bachelor’s degrees. I have a master’s, and it’s just been really difficult,” she said, before breaking into tears.

OSF tells WIFR “no comment” regarding the lawsuit.

The women say, to the best of their knowledge, patients who may have been left unattended on anesthesia may not be aware they were ever part of what they allege was happening in the operating room.

OSF Saint Anthony Medical Center Rockford Illinois Whistleblower Act neurosurgery operating room patient safety anesthesia surgical counts sterile technique synaptive tractography system Integrity Line