Physician Sexual Misconduct Among Board Certified Physicians: What Do We Know and What is the Role of Certifying Boards?

Description: Physician sexual misconduct been an intractable problem throughout history with formal attention on this not emerging until the early 1990s from the American Medical Association and Federation of State Medical Boards. The spectrum of behaviors that constitute sexual misconduct is broad, occurring along a continuum of escalating severity, and with a profound and enduring impact on patients and the public. Reliable data on frequency is difficult to obtain and has largely come from analyses of state medical board data, which has demonstrated a rise in case reporting over time. Existing studies describe associated physician and victim characteristics, the range of behaviors involved, and the types and variation of sanctions utilized across medical boards. Of note, up to 70% of cases of sexual misconduct are reported to have occurred among physicians who are not board certified. No studies to date have reported on this only among board certified physicians. We identified 100 cases of sexual misconduct from among 1,474 physicians who had violated the American Board of Family Medicine Professionalism Guidelines between 2016-2022.

In this session we will present data that includes physician and victim demographics, location of misconduct, behaviors described, medical board sanctions levied, and decisions made regarding board certification in these cases. Then we will lead a discussion regarding the meaning of these findings and the role of certifying boards in addressing this problem, including the power of data analytics to inform such an effort across ABMS Member Boards.

Citations and Literature References (if none, write n/a): Report and Recommendations of the FSMB Workgroup on Physician Sexual Misconduct. Federation of State Medical Boards. May 2020
State Medical Board Recommendations for Stronger Approaches to Sexual Misconduct by Physicians. JAMA. March 29, 2021
Romantic or Sexual Relationships with Patients. AMA Code of Medical Ethics Opinion 9.1.1.
Sexual Violation of Patients by Physicians: A Mixed-Methods, Exploratory Analysis of 101 Cases. Sex Abuse. 2019 Aug;31(5)
Contextualizing and Strengthening State Medical Board Responses to Physician Sexual Misconduct, St. Louis U. J. Health L. & Policy (2021)
Time to End Physician Sexual Abuse of Patients: Calling the U.S. Medical Community to Action. J Gen Intern Med. 2019 Jul;34(7)