She was sleepless at SUNY — and now she wants a bundle of cash for all those lost ZZZs.
A Brooklyn doctor claims she was fired for complaining about being exhausted after her boss forced her to work up to 96 hours a week, according to a million-dollar lawsuit.
Dr. Dorota Borawski was a resident at SUNY Downstate Medical Center since 2005 until she whined to boss Dr. Ovadia Abuladia about being overworked, she claims.
In 2009, Borawski was supposed to enter a fellowship program as an OB-GYN, which didn’t pay, the suit says.
Instead, she was named an assistant professor and part-time obstetrician, earning almost $78,000 a year. Her responsibilities included three days a month of on-call shifts, which totaled 56 hours.
But after four colleagues quit in the summer of 2010 because of what the suit calls Abuladia’s “abrasive management style,” her hours drastically increased, the suit says.
Borawski, a Polish native, claims that she was “forced” to work between 80 and 96 “unlawful” hours a week to make up for the lack of staff.
The extra hours were a violation of the “Libby Zion Law” in the state Department of Health Code, according to the wrongful termination lawsuit, which was filed against the hospital and Abuladia this week in Queens Supreme Court.
“I don’t know what happened … I thought highly of you … perhaps you have some social issues and it’s affecting you,” Abuladia said in a recording Borawski taped in January when she had a meeting about the long hours, which left her sleep deprived.
Borawski wrote letters to higher ups about her situation but claims they fell on deaf ears. Days later she was fired and the fellowship program was terminated.
Borawski later found out that her now former boss was telling other prospective employers that she was “unprofessional” and “unbecoming of a physician” in an attempt to discredit her.
SUNY and Abuladia declined comment.
christina.carrega@nypost.com