This weekly roundup features arrests, criminal proceedings, and other reports alleging improper or questionable conduct by healthcare professionals.
Fresh off a $215 million settlement over their former campus gynecologist, the University of Southern California faces another lawsuit as six LGBT alumni allege that a men’s health doctor performed unnecessary rectal exams to humiliate them or “to satisfy his own prurient sexual desires,” and claim negligence on the part of the university. (CNN, Los Angeles Times)
A woman posing as a nurse was charged with five felonies in federal court for practicing healthcare without a license — Florida police say she was caught distributing human chorionic gonadotropin to an undercover investigator at her “Drop It Likes It’s Hot” weight-loss clinic. (ABC)
In North Carolina, a pain management and substance abuse specialist was sentenced to 3 years in prison after admitting to prescribing drugs like acetaminophen-oxycodone (Percocet) and clonazepam (Klonopin) to multiple women in exchange for sex. (WBTV)
After a patient died at a Cleveland nursing home, seven workers there were indicted on a combined 34 charges that included falsifying the patient’s record and signing off on treatments that were never delivered. (News 5 Cleveland)
Six years after former orthopedist Spyros Panos, MD, pleaded guilty in what the plaintiffs’ attorneys call the largest medical malpractice litigation in New York, a state arbitrator released $140 million to resolve the 255 medical malpractice lawsuits. (Poughkeepsie Journal)
Wanted for his alleged involvement in a Philadelphia-area pill mill scheme, a 60-year-old doctor was arrested in Florida after an anonymous tipster alerted authorities to his whereabouts — he will will now join over a dozen others indicted in the investigation. (Patch.com)
Following last month’s arrest, a nurse from Vanderbilt University Medical Center pleaded not guilty to charges of reckless homicide after dispensing the paralytic vecuronium (Norcuron) instead of midazolam (Versed), a sedative. Several nurses in scrubs appeared in court to share their support, and the family of the patient said they did not plan on suing the hospital. (AP News)
After a 9-month investigation and 30-page report, a Florida gastroenterologist accused of groping, fondling, and sexually assaulting more than 21 of his female patients will not face charges. The investigator in the case ruled that although his actions “may have been unethical,” they did not “rise to the level of criminal.”
One of five New York doctors indicted as a part of the Insys Therapeutics racketeering case pleaded guilty to accepting kickbacks in exchange for prescribing the company’s powerful fentanyl spray Subsys. (Reuters)
Police arrested a Florida mayor, who had voluntarily surrendered his license more than 25 years ago, for allegedly still treating patients from his home. According to authorities, he was also charged with attempted homicide for firing at SWAT officers as they entered his home while trying to serve a search warrant. (Miami Herald)
Source: MedicalNewsToday.com
