More than two-thirds of physicians reported for sexual misconduct are not disciplined by medical boards for their behavior, a study by watchdog group Public Citizen found.
"This behavior 'may be verbal or physical, and may include expressions of thoughts and feelings or gestures that are sexual or that reasonably may be construed by a patient or patient's surrogate as sexual,'" states the study, published in PLOS One.
The group analyzed physician reports submitted to the National Practitioner Data Bank between 2003 and 2013. More than 1,000 physicians had one or more sexual-misconduct-related reports, and the majority of those physicians were 40 or older. Their victims were mostly female and predominantly suffered from "emotional injury only," according to the study. However, that 82 percent of victims were able to pursue malpractice cases and win on the basis of "emotional injury only," indicates the emotional injury was serious, the report notes.
The study suggests medical boards may not be entirely at fault for the lack of discipline. According the report, hospitals do not always report sexual misconduct cases to the state medical board, though they are required to by law. It also notes there may not be a 1-1 ratio of cases of sexual misconduct to reports, meaning there may have been multiple incidences of sexual misconduct before it was reported by a patient.
The study authors call for improved licensing-board discipline, increased efforts to prevent this type of behavior and more stringent state legislative oversight of medical boards.
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