Suspicious finding + no follow-up = lawsuit... Doctor crosses the line, pays the price
The cases in this column are selected by the editors of The Journal of Family Practice from Medical Malpractice: Verdicts, Settlements & Experts, with permission of the editor, Lewis Laska (https://www.triplelpublications.com/product/medical-malpractice-newsletter/). The information about the cases presented here is sometimes incomplete; pertinent details of a given situation therefore may be unavailable. Moreover, the cases may or may not have merit. Nevertheless, these cases represent the types of clinical situations that typically result in litigation.
Doctor crosses line, pays the price
A WOMAN BECAME SEXUALLY INVOLVED with her family practitioner, an affair she claimed the doctor initiated while he was treating her for anxiety and depression. She said the physician-patient relationship had begun more than a year before the sexual involvement when she learned that her infant daughter had cerebral palsy; the doctor prescribed paroxetine and bupropion.
The affair ended about 10 months after it began. The patient said it caused her marriage to deteriorate.
PLAINTIFF’S CLAIM The patient couldn’t exercise independent judgment because she was experiencing eroticized transference; the doctor mishandled the transference phenomenon.
THE DEFENSE The sexual relationship was brief and ended 6 months before the doctor treated the patient.
VERDICT $416,500 net verdict in New York.
COMMENT It’s never prudent to become involved sexually with a patient.
