TAMPA – A South Florida doctor has sued his two former employers, alleging he was forced to resign due to both institutions’ “ongoing and escalating” discrimination, retaliation and contractual breaches.
Plaintiff Muhammad Raheel Qureshi, M.D., filed his lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida, Tampa Division .
The named defendants are the University of South Florida Board of Trustees, or USF, and the Florida Health Sciences Center Inc. doing business as Tampa General Hospital, or TGH.
In his 39-page complaint, Qureshi contends the defendants violated the federal Civil Rights Act, Family and Medical Leave Act, False Claims Act, Florida Civil Rights Act, and Florida Whistleblower Act.
“The cumulative effect of Defendants’ sustained discriminatory conduct, hostile work environment, retaliation for protected activity, USF’s interference with Dr. Qureshi’s FMLA rights, continued nonpayment of compensation, and the conditions imposed on any potential return to work rendered Dr. Qureshi’s continued employment intolerable and impossible,” the complaint states.
“Upon and following his return from protected medical leave in September 2025, Dr. Qureshi was subjected to additional adverse employment actions, including removal from and vacating of his office space, reassignment and alteration of his professional responsibilities, and escalation of clinical duties beyond the scope of his prior contractual obligations and established practice patterns.
“These measures collectively reflected a coordinated effort to marginalize his professional role, undermine his standing within the institution, and impose conditions conducive to constructive separation.”
Qureshi was jointly employed by USF and TGH.
According to his lawsuit, as of January 2022, USF and TGH entered into an “enhanced alliance” to provide a unified management and support structure for physicians of both institutions.
Qureshi became an assistant professor of medicine at USF in July 2022, after the alliance between USF and TGH had taken effect.
For the entirety of his faculty tenure, he worked within the integrated USF/TGH structure at the jointly-named and jointly-operated Center for Advanced Lung Disease and Lung Transplant Program.
According to his complaint, doctors at both TGH and USF made discriminatory remarks regarding Qureshi’s Pakistani national origin and his Muslim religion.
One USF physician questioned Qureshi’s competence and delayecd his professional advancement because Qureshi was “from a developing nation,” he claims in his lawsuit.
Qureshi also alleges that over the course of four years, and continuing through the end of his employment in February 2026, he was “habitually assigned” to clinical duties at USF during all major Muslim religious holidays.
“Dr. Qureshi was not afforded the same consideration given to colleagues of other faiths or national origins with respect to holiday scheduling,” the complaint states.
He contends his experience at USF “deteriorated significantly” beginning in December 2023, after he raised “legitimate concerns” regarding both quality of care and regulatory issues.
“Rather than receiving a collegial or constructive response, Dr. Qureshi was met with escalating hostility and retaliatory behavior,” his lawsuit states.
In January 2024, Qureshi filed a formal complaint through USF’s reporting system about not just quality of care and regulatory compliance, but also national origin and religious discrimination and the hostile environment within the lung transplant team.
After receiving no response or acknowledgment of his complaint, Qureshi resubmitted the complaint in March 2024 – this time, identifying himself as the reporting party.
“Rather than investigate or address Dr. Qureshi’s complaints, USF and TGH leadership responded with a coordinated pattern of retaliatory conduct,” his filing states.
“Beginning in or about early 2024, Dr. [Jose] Herazo[-Maya], acting in his capacity as Chief of the Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine and exercising authority over Dr. Qureshi’s participation in institutional governance bodies, removed Dr. Qureshi from the Lung Executive Council in retaliation for his protected complaints.
“USF also rescheduled Medical Review Board meetings at times that prevented Dr. Qureshi from attending, thereby eliminating his ability to raise patient care and compliance concerns through that institutional channel.”
On April 3, 2025, Qureshi again raised patient safety concerns in a group text message. This time, he also informed them he intended to resign from his role as interim director of the Lung Transplant Program.
“Dr. Qureshi’s resignation from the Interim Director role was not voluntary in the ordinary sense: it was the direct product of the intolerable hostile and retaliatory conditions that Defendants had created and permitted to persist,” the complaint states, noting Qureshi still held three institutional titles: associate program director of the USF Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine Fellowship Program, ECMO medical director at Tampa General Hospital, and assistant professor of medicine and full-time faculty member in the Lung Transplant Program.
A few days later, Qureshi suffered “an acute medical episode” requiring emergency hospitalization.
Instead of reaching out to Qureshi’s wife, USF sent sheriff’s deputies to his home soon after for a purported “wellness check,” Qureshi alleges.
“The dispatch of law enforcement to Dr. Qureshi’s home without first contacting his emergency contact, while he was known to be hospitalized, compounded the stress and distress being experienced by Dr. Qureshi’s family and embarrassed him in front of his neighbors,” his filing states.
In addition, USF did not formally approve his FMLA leave until on or about June 18, 2025.
The hospital also allegedly conditioned his return to work on a fitness-for-duty evaluation by a psychologist – despite leadership being notified his hospitalization stemmed from cardiac symptoms.
“USF’s decision to require a psychological fitness-for-duty evaluation, rather than a cardiac or general medical evaluation, while it was aware Dr. Qureshi had been hospitalized for cardiac symptoms, was an act of retaliation designed to discredit Dr. Qureshi and imply that his protected complaints were the product of mental illness rather than legitimate professional concerns,” the complaint states.
According to Qureshi’s filing, USF also stopped paying his wages while he remained on medical leave, despite his 600 hours of accrued paid sick leave and annual leave available.
TGH also failed to pay the compensation owed him over the course of 18 months, Qureshi contends.
Qureshi, citing the defendants’ continued discrimination and retaliation, resigned effective Feb. 28, 2026.
He seeks compensatory damages, including unpaid compensation; punitive damages; pre- and post-judgment interest; reinstatement or front pay in lieu of; back pay; attorney fees and damages for mental anguish, emotional distress, humiliation and physical injury.
Goddard Law PLLC in New York is representing Qureshi in the lawsuit.
