Sex Abuse in Medicine News Stories
Below are key excerpts of revealing news articles on medical sexual abuse scandals from reliable news media sources. If any link fails to function, a paywall blocks full access, or the article is no longer available, try these digital tools.
A new national investigation by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has uncovered 450 cases of doctors who were brought before medical regulators or courts for sexual misconduct or sex crimes in 2016 and 2017. In nearly half of those cases, the AJC found, the doctors remain licensed to practice medicine, no matter whether the victims were patients or employees, adults or children. Even some doctors criminally convicted are back in practice, demonstrating that a system that forgives doctors first exposed by the AJC in 2016 has not changed. Dr. Richard Martin Roberts is still allowed to see patients in Texas even though a medical board disciplinary panel in November 2017 found he repeatedly conducted unwarranted genital exams on young girls. Only doctors get to do this, he told one, a 7-year-old he was supposed to be examining for a learning disability. Doctors benefit from a system where victims are often not believed [and] criminal charges for physician sex abuse are rare. At a time when powerful men in business and politics are losing careers over sexual misconduct, Americas doctors remain a baffling exception, impervious to the power of the #MeToo movement. The AJCs new investigation found that medical boards still routinely handle serious sexual misconduct as an illness or lapse in training that should be dealt with through therapy, education and watchful eyes in exam rooms. In 31 states, cases can be hidden from the public through private board actions.
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As a women's health advocate and practicing OB-GYN for 25 years, I want to point out that some doctors, especially male gynecologists, pediatricians and anesthesiologists and psychiatrists, have raped, fondled and molested patients of all ages. Finally, the conversation is getting started because of Dr. Lawrence G. Nassar. He's the former team doctor for U.S.A. Gymnastics, and he was sentenced to 60 years in prison on child pornography (37,000 images!) charges. I've heard story upon story about sexual misconduct from my patients, including inappropriate touching and sexual misconduct during their gynecologic exams when they were young women. Experiences like these have a long-term negative effect on a woman and the way she takes care of her physical health during her lifetime. Trying to get any hard facts or statistics about doctor sexual misconduct is very difficult. According to the Atlanta-Journal Constitution, "half of the more than 2,400 doctors sanctioned since 1999 for sexual misconduct involving patients still have active medical licenses." A nationwide investigation by the AJC published in July 2016 found widespread sexual abuse by doctors from OB-GYNs committing rape and anesthesiologists taking advantage of sedated patients to pediatricians molesting children. We cannot tolerate business as usual. I would like to see a law passed where violating a patient would result in revoking his or her medical license, jail time and being forever identified as a sex offender on state registries.
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Former patients of a retired Indianapolis fertility doctor expressed anger that he avoided jail time Thursday for lying about using his own sperm to impregnate as many as dozens of women after telling them the donors were anonymous. Dr. Donald Cline was given a one-year suspended sentence after pleading guilty to two counts of obstruction of justice. No other charges were filed ... because Indiana law doesn't specifically prohibit fertility doctors from using their own sperm. The charges stemmed from two confirmed cases of paternity. Matt White and his mother, Liz White, said Cline deserved far greater punishment. He said DNA tests showed that Cline was his biological father even though Cline told his mother decades ago that he used anonymous sperm donations. "There's dozens of us," said Matt White. Some of the now-adult children of Cline's former patients filed a complaint with the Indiana Attorney General's Office in 2014, after they became suspicious while scouring online records to find biological relatives. Paternity tests performed the Marion County prosecutor's office determined Cline was likely the biological father of at least two of his patients' children. Cline, who retired in 2009, initially denied the allegations when he wrote to investigators, saying the women who filed the complaints were trying to slander him. On Thursday, he acknowledged that he had lied. Matt White said private DNA tests have identified 23 people as Cline's biological children with mothers who were his patients.
Note: See a list of powerful articles revealing egregious and rampant sexual abuse by doctors around the US. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sexual abuse scandals and health.
The American Medical Association will no longer tolerate sexual misconduct by physicians at least if their victims are other doctors, and if the abuse occurs at an AMA event. But the association is doing nothing to crack down on predators who violate other victims: their patients. Almost a year after The Atlanta Journal-Constitution revealed widespread sexual misconduct in the medical profession, the AMA has scheduled neither formal proposals nor public discussions on doctors who abuse their patients. The organizations silence forfeits an opportunity to address a problem that has stirred public interest. They seem more likely to address someone elses problems than their own, said Lisa McGiffert, manager of the Safe Patient Project. The newspaper identified more than 2,400 doctors who had been disciplined for sexual violations involving patients; half are still licensed to practice medicine. But the numbers fail to capture the scope of misconduct. Many state medical boards deal with sex cases in private and issue no public findings. Others use vague language or euphemisms to hide the true nature of disciplinary matters. By some estimates, 7 percent of American doctors have engaged in sexual misconduct meaning that tens of thousands may have engaged in harassment, molestation, even rape. The AMA plays no direct role in licensing or disciplining doctors, a function of state medical authorities. But the association is a powerful voice for the medical profession.
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Dr. Mark Knight calls himself an artist, one whose gifted hands sculpt bodies to perfection. Sometimes, though, Knights hands strayed. So last year regulators placed the plastic surgeon ... on probation for sexual misconduct with patients. He will be subject to restrictions on his practice and close monitoring until 2020. But when patients come to his office ... Knight doesnt have to tell them about his disciplinary status. And he doesnt have to explain why an extra person is supposed to always be in the room: to make sure Knight doesnt violate patients again. Knights freedom to see patients without disclosing his tarnished record underscores the opaqueness of the physician discipline system across the United States, a national investigation by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution found. The AJC identified more than 2,400 doctors disciplined for sexual misconduct involving patients since 1999. Half are still licensed. No state routinely requires doctors to tell patients when they have faced disciplinary action. Four states post no disciplinary records online, and at least nine purge case files after as little as five years. Twenty-one states sometimes handle misconduct cases secretly and allow doctors to continue practice with no public hearings or public scrutiny. In 2015, advocates working with the Safe Patient Project petitioned Californias medical board to require ... a doctor on probation [to] give each patient a one-page form that briefly stated his offense. At a hearing in October, board members unanimously rejected the petition.
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Medical regulators pledge that patient protection is their central mission. As part of that focus, their websites provide information to the public about doctors. But in most states, patients will have a difficult time finding out if their doctors have been disciplined for sexual abuse or other violations. No state provides complete and accurate information on every doctor. Some obstacles to that are intentional. They are the result of state laws that tie regulators hands, agreements negotiated with doctors attorneys, or concerns about harming a doctors practice. Maryland investigated Dr. Joshua R. Mitchell III in 2005 after a complaint that he had sexually violated a patient. The board learned that the Baltimore police sex-crimes unit had investigated a similar complaint from another patient. The medical board wrapped up its 2005 investigation with a private letter advising Mitchell to offer a chaperone during breast and pelvic exams. Then in January 2010, a patient reported Mitchell raped her. The boards website didnt provide any information to the public until May 2010. Illinois and Wyoming post only summaries of disciplinary actions, which may not detail violations. Arkansas and both of Oklahomas boards require the public to file requests for disciplinary orders, and Oklahoma requires a fee. In contrast: Maine not only posts orders but provides a phone number for patients to find out if non-disciplinary action has been taken against a doctor.
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The resident physician of the NXIVM sex cult has been charged by a state oversight board of conducting illegal human experiments. The New York Post reported ... that Dr. Brandon Porter, 44, forced actress Jennifer Kobelt to watch dismemberment and rape videos for a fright study he was conducting. He continued to film my reaction for at least 10 minutes as I just sat there, dry heaving like I was going to puke and crying very hard, Kobelt, said in the complaint to the health department. He failed me, not only as a friend but as the medical practitioner I had trusted on numerous occasions with my health while I was in New York. The New York State Office of Professional Medical Conduct said in a letter to Kobelt in September 2017 that they were not going to investigate Porter because the issues you have described are not medical misconduct. The board is now accusing Porter of moral unfitness, gross negligence and gross incompetence. A New York Supreme Court justice signed an executive order asking Porter and Clare Bronfman of the nonprofit Ethical Science Foundation to hand over documents on the human studies that were conducted for research, the Albany Times Union reported in April. Actress Samia Shoaib spoke out against actress Allison Mack after she was arrested on sex trafficking charges in April. Shoaib said Mack attempted to recruit her into the cult that is known to be abusive by blackmailing and branding women.
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Olympic gold-medal-winning gymnast McKayla Maroney alleges in a lawsuit filed in Los Angeles on Wednesday that USA Gymnastics paid her to be quiet about abuse by the team's longtime doctor Larry Nassar. The lawsuit ... also names as defendants Michigan State University, the US Olympic Committee and Nassar, the former team doctor who has admitted sexually abusing underage girls. "In December of 2016, after suffering for years from psychological trauma of her sexual abuse at the hands of Nassar, and in need of funds to pay for psychological treatment," Maroney was forced to enter into a confidential agreement with USA Gymnastics, the lawsuit said. John Manly, Maroney's attorney, called the confidentiality agreement "an immoral and illegal attempt to silence a victim of child sexual abuse. The US Olympic Committee and USA Gymnastics were well aware that the victim of child sexual abuse in California cannot be forced to sign a nondisclosure agreement as a condition of a settlement," he said. "Such agreements are illegal for very good reasons - they silence victims and allow perpetrators to continue committing their crimes." Maroney entered the settlement to "obtain funds necessary to pay for lifesaving psychological treatment and care," according to the lawsuit. Nassar was sentenced to 60 years in federal prison on child pornography charges earlier this month. In November, he pleaded guilty to seven counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct and admitted to using his position to sexually abuse underage girls.
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More than 2,400 U.S. doctors have been sanctioned for sexually abusing their patients, according to a new report that, for the first time, surveyed records from all 50 states and reveals the nationwide scope of a problem that may be almost as far-reaching as the scandal involving Catholic priests. State medical boards, which oversee physicians, allowed more than half the sanctioned doctors to keep their licenses even after the accusations of sexual abuse were determined to be true, according to a yearlong investigation by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. We found a culture of secrecy, said Carrie Teegardin, a reporter on the papers investigative team. Even after being convicted of sex crimes and losing their licenses, doctors are often able to reapply to practice again. The Journal-Constitution investigation began with a story about one Georgia doctor that led to efforts to document the problem nationwide. By combing through news reports, state medical board records and court files going back 16 years, the Journal-Constitution's reporters compiled a list of physicians who were either convicted in criminal cases or disciplined by state medical boards. Many of the doctors were accused by large numbers of their patients, in most cases females being seen by male doctors. One thing we found that was shocking to us is some of these doctors are the most prolific sex offenders in the country, with hundreds and, in some cases, thousands of victims, Teegardin said.
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