Is it ethical/legal to date your doctor?

[lady in red]

After you are done seeing him as a doctor...?
How about before, I mean when treatment is still in progress?
Please dont attack me, I haven't done it (yet)....

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[UCMonkey]

Personally, I think if your dating him/her BECAUSE he/she is your doctor, there could be some serious issues going on.

To answer the question though, I think if you are no longer the patient, it should be OK. However, if you are still receiving treatment from the doctor, I'm not aware of anything illegal about dating him/her, but it is definitely ethically questionable. I think it is generally accepted that doctors dating patients are too emotionally involved to make objective treatment decisions.

 

[ckent]

It is not ethical to date your doctor, it is considered grounds to have the doctor's license suspended (permanently or temporarily depending on the situation) in most states. It's actually not even recommended that physicians engage their patients in a social setting, for fear of compromising their doctor patient boundary. Of course this rule is more strigent in some specialties (psychiatry) then others (anesthesiology).

 

[praying4MD]

Oooh. I thought you were married, lady in red! Is there something you're not telling us? Do tell, I'm up for the gossip!

It's definitely not ethical, but I personally think it depends on the situation. If things go sour, you'd better have another doc in line and not resort to lowly tactics of ruining him as a physician. The whole idea is unprofessional though. I mean, how could you get through an exam without ending up resorting to something else? But maybe that's just me and my dirty mind.

 

[ckent]

My dad is a physician and we get mail from the Maryland board of physicians quality control (or some official title like that). In one section, they have the names of all the physicians they have reprimanded for that quarter and what they did. Usually, around half of the physicians they reprimanded were reprimanded for have consensual sexual relations with patients who still under their care. The majority of physicians that fall under this category are psychiatrists, but there are other specialties (cardiologists, internists, surgeons)that occassionally show up to. Even if it is "consensual", it's considered "non-consensual" by the board because of the difference in power.

 

[lady in red]

No, I am not involved with any doctors, neither want to date them b/c they are doctors.
Praying4MD, I am from an island where women can have multiple husbands


, remember my application is still pending with Scooby. So is yours.... Since Scooby will be a doctor, I decided to ask in advance whether it will be ethical to date him in the future.......
Hope this clarifies things for you

 

[Warren P. Cheswick]

It's unethical due to dual relationships.

Basically this means you can be a doctor but can't be anything else to your patient. As in the coach perspective you can't be a coach and the professor of the same person.

Same grounds are there for doctor.

 

[praying4MD]

Originally posted by lady in red:
•Praying4MD, I am from an island where women can have multiple husbands ... my application is still pending with Scooby. So is yours...•

Can I move to your island? As for Scooby, his application processing will be delayed because he has to deal with the trauma of experiencing puppy love for me, which is unreciprocated, of course.

 

[praying mantis]

My mother was my father's patient. She faked a complication to surgery just to see him again. They have been happily married for 25 years.

 

[Trek]

Aw heck. If ya really like him, start going to another doc, ask him out and have at it. All this ethical stuff is crap. Just make sure he's not your doc at the same time he's your man. --Trek