Predator MDs: in a Saner Society, Victims Would March to the Clinics with Torches and Pitchforks
In New York City two years ago a Columbia University physician named Robert Hadden confessed in court to "criminal sex act upon a patient". He was not sentenced to jail of course, because he was - as we've been reminding you for 10 years - a doctor. And in the United States criminal doctors are held to the lowest level of punishment, of any profession. The state medical board opted to revoke his license and the judge sent Hadden home like a brat in a lab coat.
Fast forward to last Tuesday, and New York Presbyterian medical system as well as Columbia University, now face a class action lawsuit in New York Supreme Court by 17 women. The lawsuit states the university management knowingly allowed a sexual pervert MD to treat patients for two decades.
According to the lawsuit, "Columbia and it's hospital repeatedly concealed, conspired and enabled the sexual abuse by Doctor Robert Hadden”.
“These super predators cannot exist without the support of the institutions they work for.” (Anthony DiPietro, New York attorney involved with the case)
Until he was fired by Columbia, Hadden was employed as an OB-GYN specialist and treated nearly 4,000 women. At least 17 of them will testify that Hadden's perversions subjected them to repeated sexual abuse, including vaginal and anal penetration, often without gloves, for no medical reason. They say Hadden would give them inappropriate breast examinations, make lewd comments about their bodies, and ask them questions about their sexual behavior.
One former patient, Marissa Hoechstetter, for example, reports that Hadden treated her during and after her pregnancy starting in 2009.
“From the start, there were inappropriate questions. There was unnecessary touching. There were exams without other people in the room, and on the last occasion, when I knew that something happened, he licked me. And I never went back to the clinic again,”
As far back as the mid-1990s, a nurse at a Columbia University clinic reports she once walked in on Hadden during a sexual abuse episode. She was ordered to “keep quiet,” by the clinic manager.
And so it goes. We get precisely what we tolerate.