Wow, I feel like my mind has been blown. I remember going over this extremely briefly in class, and then moving onto the next topic. The more you think about it, the more questions you have, especially regarding the gray area! I would love to hear what Sector9 was told during the presentation. That might shed more light on this. Otherwise, this is how I see it...
I think that typically no matter what, the physician will be looked upon as being predatory. Pretty much trying to take advantage of someone during their most vulnerable time. The patient will probably always be looked upon as a victim.
I still think that there's a difference between a patient with a serious illness who is emotionally unstable (where the patient might make advances toward the physician or vice versa) versus a healthy patient seeing a PCP where they both feel a mutual attraction. I recently saw my PCP for my regular checkup. Everything was fine. And I can assure everyone here that I was not emotionally unstable or felt vulnerable at all. I doubt most patients seeing a PCP would feel vulnerable either. So in this case, I think the latter would not be frowned upon. It would probably be an entertaining dinner conversation about how they met. But if the patient was either ill or mentally unstable, the physician will be viewed as predatory,
REGARDLESS OF THE CIRCUMSTANCES. Remember what happened to Eliot Spitzer a few years ago? He was seeing a high-end escort that was making more money a night than most of us on SDN can ever dream of. Yet, she played the sympathy card when she tried to make herself out to be the victim on national TV. As Sector9 has mentioned, this would undoubtedly happen if a relationship goes south.
And to address your point CityLights, I actually disagree with you on this one. People can definitely be punished. As was mentioned earlier in the thread, physicians can lose their medical licenses if they are caught with a patient!
You might not think that law enforcement or regulatory boards can infiltrate your life like that, but they can. Sorry to keep going with the prostitution theme here, but this happens all the time in Chicago.
Every other day you hear about prostitution busts in Cook County with escorts and the Johns. Despite two consensual adults agreeing to have sex (well technically for money) behind closed doors, law enforcement can and will still arrest you. So just when you think you're safe from the medical regulatory bodies, you're definitely not.