In July 2016, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution released the first installment in its multi-media Doctors & Sex Abuse investigative series. The series delves into sexual misconduct among physicians nationwide. The newspaper began investigating physician abuse in Georgia last year and, after looking at those results, expanded the investigation to the rest of the country. Reporters and legal researchers looked at public records, contacted medical boards and regulatory agencies for information, and even wrote approximately 50 computer programs to cull through regulatory websites and collect disciplinary documents.
The newspaper analyzed more than 100,000 medical board orders nationwide relating to disciplinary actions against physicians since 1999. It found that sexual abuse perpetuated by physicians occurs more often than most people might expect and that the system often protects the doctors involved. In public records, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution found 3,000 cases of sexual abuse related to physicians, 2,400 of those cases involved patients. However, those numbers represented only a fraction of physicians with sexual violations since the beginning of 1999. Many cases never came to the attention of state regulators or were not posted publicly.
The investigation found that some doctors were disciplined only once and a few had hundreds of violations, yet they continued to legally practice medicine. Victims ranged from babies to women in their 80s and included people sexually assaulted in a variety of scenarios and locations. Some were victimized during routine examinations and some were assaulted while under sedation, in doctor’s offices, hospitals, prisons and elsewhere.
The series will run through the end of 2016. Click here for articles and videos: .