Bode

Los Angeles Metropolitan Medical Center appeals from the judgment entered after the trial court granted Dr. Georgia Bode’s petition for administrative mandate to set aside the medical center’s decision to first suspend, and then to not renew, her temporary privilege to practice there. We affirm.

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

On January 2, 2003, Dr. Georgia Bode began work as an anesthesiologist at Los Angeles Metropolitan Medical Center (the hospital or L.A. Metro) with temporary, but renewable, 90-day practice privileges pending action on her application for membership on the hospital’s medical staff. The hospital had recently replaced its entire anesthesiology staff after incidents involving the mishandling of controlled narcotic substances caused an accreditation agency to award the hospital only a conditional accreditation. Bode, who had an unblemished record since she began practicing in 1987, gave up her staff membership at Centinela Hospital in order to go to L.A. Metro.

In response to the mishandled drug problem, the hospital instituted Sure-Med, a computer-operated drug dispensary system. In order to return unused drugs, a physician must enter information into…