Licenses of nearly all docs charged with sexual misconduct are safe

All 50 states plus the District of Columbia are guilty of lax treatment of doctors who sexually abuse patients, an Atlanta Journal-Constitution investigative report finds this month.

The report details cases in Kentucky, California, New Mexico of physicians grabbing and groping patients as they attempted to leave the examination room. Other doctors sexually abused their patients while they were under anesthesia. None of these doctors, however, were forced to stop practicing. Victims ranged from infants to the elderly, the report notes.

Hospitals and health care organizations are partially to blame, sweeping offenses under the rug. But even when state boards were made aware of egregious offenses, they gave physicians second chances and many times, the physicians abused again.

Read the full report here.