TY  - JOUR
PY  - 2016//
TI  - Cross-sectional analysis of the 1039 U.S. physicians reported to the National Practitioner Data Bank  for sexual misconduct, 2003-2013
JO  - PLoS one
A1  - AbuDagga, Azza
A1  - Wolfe, Sidney M.
A1  - Carome, Michael
A1  - Oshel, Robert E.
SP  - e0147800
EP  - e0147800
VL  - 11
IS  - 2
N2  - BACKGROUND: Little information exists on U.S. physicians who have been disciplined with licensure or restriction-of-clinical-privileges actions or have had malpractice payments because of sexual misconduct. Our objectives were to: (1) determine the number of these physicians and compare their age groups' distribution with that of the general U.S. physician population; (2) compare the type of disciplinary actions taken against these physicians with actions taken against physicians disciplined for other offenses; (3) compare the characteristics and type of injury among victims of these physicians with those of victims in reports for physicians with other offenses in malpractice-payment reports; and (4) determine the percentages of physicians with clinical-privileges or malpractice-payment reports due to sexual misconduct who were not disciplined by medical boards. <br><br>METHODS AND RESULTS: We conducted a cross-sectional analysis of physician reports submitted to the National Practitioner Data Bank (NPDB) from January 1, 2003, through September 30, 2013. A total of 1039 physicians had ≥ 1 sexual-misconduct-related reports. The majority (75.6%) had only licensure reports, and 90.1% were 40 or older. For victims in malpractice-payment reports, 87.4% were female, and "emotional injury only" was the predominant type of injury. We found a higher percentage of serious licensure actions and clinical-privileges revocations in sexual-misconduct-related reports than in reports for other offenses (89.0% vs 68.1%, P = <.001, and 29.3% vs 18.8%, P =.002, respectively). Seventy percent of the physicians with a clinical-privileges or malpractice-payment report due to sexual misconduct were not disciplined by medical boards for this problem. <br><br>CONCLUSIONS: A small number of physicians were reported to the NPDB because of sexual misconduct. It is concerning that a majority of the physicians with a clinical-privileges action or malpractice-payment report due to sexual misconduct were not disciplined by medical boards for this unethical behavior.<p />  <p>Language: en</p>
LA  - en
SN  - 1932-6203
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0147800
ID  - ref1
ER  -