A psychiatrist is accused of making a female patient perform sexual favors...

[fMRI]

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(6/29/09) - A psychiatrist is accused of making a female patient perform sexual favors to get the medicine she needed.

http://www.wsmv.com/video/19897216/index.html

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😱 A friend just sent me this story from Nashville, TN.
This is just wrong. 😡


Reminds me of "Rule Nr. 1"
Don't sleep with your patients.
...

 

[silas2642]

(6/29/09) - A psychiatrist is accused of making a female patient perform sexual favors to get the medicine she needed.

http://www.wsmv.com/video/19897216/index.html

-----
😱 A friend just sent me this story from Nashville, TN.
This is just wrong. 😡


Reminds me of "Rule Nr. 1"
Don't sleep with your patients.
...

Sleeping with your patients is definitely wrong, but what he did (and it sounds like he did it since he admitted to it) is a step or two beyond that.

 

[abcxyz0123]

Question: say you had a patient u saw for a year or two...then they stopped being ur patient for good, then 10-15 years later down the line u meet them at a bar and end up sleeping with them. Is that illegal, since they were ur patient at one time in ur life? I could see something like that happening to me......better find out the legalities of it coz i dont wanna go to prison

 

[kugel]

Question: say you had a patient u saw for a year or two...then they stopped being ur patient for good, then 10-15 years later down the line u meet them at a bar and end up sleeping with them. Is that illegal, since they were ur patient at one time in ur life? I could see something like that happening to me......better find out the legalities of it coz i dont wanna go to prison

illegal vs unethical vs foolish...
not always the same things.

I tend to be a "hardliner" on this, but unless you had both completely forgotten about the previous relationship (and it could always be argued that you remembered unconsciously), then your relationship was born out of the power differential of being his/her doctor. I wouldn't recommend pursuing a romantic relationship with that in the background.

Yes, it does happen among psychiatrists, therapists, ministers, professors, lawyers, police officers, and lots of other "power differential" professionals - but that doesn't make it right or smart.

There are enough potential mates out there to be able to avoid this mess.

Have I ever been attracted to a patient or the family member of a patient?
Yes.
Will I act on that, even in the distant future?
No. I've made that choice and I will stick to it.

As I said, I tend to take the extreme view on such things.

 

[abcxyz0123]

illegal vs unethical vs foolish...
not always the same things.

I tend to be a "hardliner" on this, but unless you had both completely forgotten about the previous relationship (and it could always be argued that you remembered unconsciously), then your relationship was born out of the power differential of being his/her doctor. I wouldn't recommend pursuing a romantic relationship with that in the background.

Yes, it does happen among psychiatrists, therapists, ministers, professors, lawyers, police officers, and lots of other "power differential" professionals - but that doesn't make it right or smart.

There are enough potential mates out there to be able to avoid this mess.

Have I ever been attracted to a patient or the family member of a patient?
Yes.
Will I act on that, even in the distant future?
No. I've made that choice and I will stick to it.

As I said, I tend to take the extreme view on such things.

right....but i asked if it was illegal thats all. Is it?

 

[Sneezing]

I can't recall legality, but I do know that once some one has been a patient, and any time you have any kind of sexual relationship in the present/future you will lose your medical license. This is irregardless of whether you are actively treating or had briefly treated in the distant past. Simple rule, as mentioned above, don't do it - ever.

Other specialties may pursue relations only after current care is complete or handed off to another phsyician. Still frowned upon.

 

[OldPsychDoc]

right....but i asked if it was illegal thats all. Is it?

Illegal as in arrest, judge, jail---no.
Unethical as in state board review, loss of license and livelihood---yes.

 

[whopper]

Agree.

I don't know if this guy truly is guilty, but if he is, he ought to lose his liscence, in addition to suffer criminal charges.

Not the first, nor the last. Psychiatrists are human beings. Just like police officers, some of whom will abuse their powers, so too will doctors.

 

[pingouin]

right....but i asked if it was illegal thats all. Is it?

Last sentence of page 4 (which is actually page 6 of the PDF) answers the professional ethics question although does not address legality:

http://www.psych.org/MainMenu/Psych...urcesStandards/PrinciplesofMedicalEthics.aspx

 

[whopper]

The state of Ohio has a list of mental health therapists who have in the past have been found having sex with their clients. I don't know if psychiatrists are on that list but I do know that counselors are. The list is pretty much on the order of a sex offender. These people are not classified as sex offenders, but any client or institution looking to hire a counselor can access this list, and let it influence their judgment on hiring that person.

I fully endorse such as list so long as those on it have been found guilty with evidence of a high standard. Reason being is that several patients, especially Cluster B patients are quick to falsely accuse others.

 

[serenablare]

Sleeping with your patients is definitely wrong, but what he did (and it sounds like he did it since he admitted to it) is a step or two beyond that.

Your use of the word "definitely" is suspect. It implies the situation was debatable. i.e. the guilty man saying "I made sure to never sexually exploit that patient."

I marvel at how sexist psychiatrists and psychologists are. Truly wtf is going on in your heads?

 

[fMRI]

Your use of the word "definitely" is suspect. It implies the situation was debatable. i.e. the guilty man saying "I made sure to never sexually exploit that patient."

I marvel at how sexist psychiatrists and psychologists are. Truly wtf is going on in your heads?

Voting to close this thread, please.
(Just like serenablare's other posting where she started to insult people).

 

[Faebinder]

Voting to close this thread, please.
(Just like serenablare's other posting where she started to insult people).

I second that and also propose a ban on her altogether.

 

[whopper]

I say close the thread as well. I marvel at how ______ any field is...insert your derogatory-ism here will be a waste of our time.

Based on this person's previous posts, taking them at face value, the purpose our forum would not address her needs, or is in line with the purpose of this forum. People here who are upset at their health providers need to address that issue with the proper authorities (police, state medical board, the provider's employer, a lawyer).

If I get a bad hamburger at Burger King, I'm not supposed to go to the Wendy's next door and complain about how all hamburgers are bad, and cause a ruckuss there. Within minutes, I think the Wendy's manager would kick out someone doing that behavior.

 

[billypilgrim37]

And how about we just ban people who show an inability to read?

 

[nancysinatra]

Is closing the thread really the answer? Perhaps it won't help the thread to have inflammatory posts, but there MUST be sexism in medicine if this case happened! I doubt anyone was surprised that the doctor was male and the patient victims were female. Obviously personal insults are not warranted here in the forum but I hope we are not merely clamping down on criticism of our profession--this case, and the case in Brooklyin where a woman died while waiting for treatment are notorious cases where it is not surprising harsh words should be heard, and if we clamp down because we don't like the outrage these cases create that's shameful. Maybe our profession needs to police itself better to avoid these things. Whopper you have posted about how once a doctor is licensed there is little oversight...

You can close a thread but you can't stop the public from thinking what it will think when these cases are publicized. People do generalize, unfortunately. I would hope other SDNers wouldn't do so but it is a sign of what's going on out in the world. We really edit this forum to keep out hostility but it's not going to stop in the real world in the wake of this kind of thing, and it doesn't answer the charge of sexism.

 

[nancysinatra]

If I get a bad hamburger at Burger King, I'm not supposed to go to the Wendy's next door and complain about how all hamburgers are bad, and cause a ruckuss there. Within minutes, I think the Wendy's manager would kick out someone doing that behavior.

A really savvy Wendy's manager would try to exploit your disappointment with Burger King's product by agreeing with you and then winning you over with the great Wendy's burgers. They wouldn't ban you right off the bat unless you had a gun or something. In business the customer is always right.

 

[DrFraud]

Is closing the thread really the answer? Perhaps it won't help the thread to have inflammatory posts, but there MUST be sexism in medicine if this case happened! I doubt anyone was surprised that the doctor was male and the patient victims were female.
.........
We really edit this forum to keep out hostility but it's not going to stop in the real world in the wake of this kind of thing, and it doesn't answer the charge of sexism.

Lots of sweeping generalizations here. I always wonder why there are those who like to turn an act of unethical and improper behavior into a platform for sexism, gender issues, etc. Well, i know why, but I believe its bad and inappropriate to suggest that a doctor is male because of improper boundarys with a patient. Just like there are female and male teachers who are unethical and improper, so too are there female and male doctors who violate ethical rules and have improper relationships with patients.

 

[nancysinatra]

Lots of sweeping generalizations here. I always wonder why there are those who like to turn an act of unethical and improper behavior into a platform for sexism, gender issues, etc. Well, i know why, but I believe its bad and inappropriate to suggest that a doctor is male because of improper boundarys with a patient. Just like there are female and male teachers who are unethical and improper, so too are there female and male doctors who violate ethical rules and have improper relationships with patients.

I'm not trying to turn the case into a platform. And you aren't privy to the inner workings of my mind so no, you would not know why I would do anything. During a psych rotation I was in last year, we read a journal article about sexual boundary violations between psychiatrists and patients. Overwhelmingly the doctors were male and the patients were female. I would not have made that assumption (or at least posted about it) IF I HADN'T READ THE ARTICLE. I can't remember it off the top of my head and I'm not interested in that aspect of the debate so much anyway so I don't currently have a link.

Clearly there are female doctors who violate boundaries. Who would suggest otherwise? I'm just saying people have a thin skin sometimes. No one deserves to be personally insulted on a thread and given an unfair accusation, and maybe if I were the one insulted I'd want the thread closed too, but I'm just saying I'm not sure a couple insults are enough to close a thread. And just because someone RAISES the subject of sexism does not mean sexism does not exist. I'm not accusing any individuals of sexism or even eager to talk about it, but I'm just questioning why some people are so eager to close threads when it arises.

 

[pingouin]

Closing this thread since the OP requested it. If anyone would like to continue the discussion, feel free to create a new thread. If it would be helpful to move some of the posts from this thread into a new thread to get the conversation going, let me know and I'd be happy to do that.

In the meantime, rather than express your concerns about a particular poster or post in-thread (and therefore publicly), please know that making liberal use of the Report Post button (

) is SDN's preferred way to alert mods to something that's concerning.