Physician Misconduct. Chapter 1. An Overview

Physicians like all humans, commit the full range of crimes. The term Physician Misconduct refers to bad behavior within the context of being a physician.

This first chapter provides an overview.

Misconduct basically can be divided into two major categories: Financial and Physical. Financial is straight forward and refers to all forms of fraud that can be performed by any profession: 1) overbilling for services, 2) overbilling for products, 3) billing for services that were never rendered, 4) research fraud and grant misconduct, and 5) billing for services that were not needed. This last category overlaps with physical misconduct..

Physical misconduct refers to misconduct that results from: 1) incompetence, 2) impairment, 3) psychological abuse, 4) physical/ sexual abuse, and 5) malicious abuse.

The misconduct which has captured the greatest public attention at the present time is Physical/Sexual abuse. The attention started with Larry Nassar at Michigan State., who molested in the range of 500 female gymnasts, who were often under 16. This was preceded by the physical/sexual abuse of Jerry Sandusky at Penn State who molested in the neighborhood of 20 young boys, under the age of 16. In many respects I consider it an artificial separation of abuse by adults who are in a position of authority and physicians. Abuse is abuse.

What has been almost completely overlooked in the story of physician abuse is the complicity of administration. Their role I will highlight in this account of physician abuse.