Cross-Sectional Analysis of the 1039 U.S. Physicians Reported to the National Practitioner Data Bank for Sexual Misconduct, 2003–2013

Azza AbuDagga, Sidney M Wolfe, Michael Carome and Robert E Oshel

PLOS ONE, 2016, vol. 11, issue 2, 1-13

Abstract: 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. 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 =

Date: 2016
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pone00:0147800

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0147800

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