Doctors Behaving Badly: Michigan medical board keeps physician's misdeeds under cover

by

CHJ Fellow

September 24, 2010

Patricia Cornwell, take note: The Michigan Board of Medicine may have a treasure trove of story ideas for your crime novels.

How does this sound for a book opener?

A married patient leaves a new pair of expensive boots at a psychiatrist's office with a note saying, "If you ever decide to ‘kick up your heels,' I just hope you'll do it with me."

Cut to the doctor's office a few months later, heels and everything else tossed onto the floor while the two had sex.

When confronted about violating the boundaries between patient and therapist, the story takes a Cornwellian dark turn. The doctor tells a state investigator that she had only engaged in a relationship with the patient "out of fear" and that the patient had "exhibited ‘homicidal' behavior," according to medical board documents.

Toss into the mix some risky flirtations with the minister of a local church recovering from two sexual assaults, and you not only have a book but a made-for-TV movie.

For now, though, the board is keeping cases like the case of Dr. Elizabeth Bennett Cox under lock and key. The public has to make a request in writing – via mail, fax or email – and then wait at least a week for the documents to arrive in the mail.

Cox may be a fantastic therapist. But shouldn't prospective patients of hers be allowed to easily access the records of behavior the board has deemed negligent, incompetent and lacking in good moral character?

In December 2008, Cox was suspended from practicing for two years, which means she'll be back in action in December. Maybe that's penance enough, but shouldn't her new patients have all the information available before deciding whether to seek treatment from her?

It's not just romantic dalliances that are kept under wraps in Michigan. Negligence that resulted in patient deaths. Incompetence that left patients permanently injured. Lack of good moral character that defrauded patients and the public of money. All of this might as well be a secret because, unlike most states, it is not provided by the board in an easily accessible database.

But the secret should be out soon enough. Board staff members tell Antidote that they are in the process of scanning their disciplinary records and posting them online. They hope to complete the project by the end of 2010.

This is good news for patients. It's also good news for budding thriller writers.

To read the documents related to this case, click here. To see Cox on the Doctors Behaving Badly Google map, click here.

To inquire or to quibble, write askantidote [at] gmail [dot] com.

The Doctors Behaving Badly tour thus far:

Doctors Behaving Badly: Mississippi makes public pony up for peek at doctor histories

Doctors Behaving Badly: Minnesota doc bends pregnant patients to weird whims

Doctors Behaving Badly: Massachusetts doc's solo flights leave patients plummeting with no chute

Doctors Behaving Badly: Maine welcomes psychiatrist with fraud conviction and drug abuse concerns

Doctors Behaving Badly: Louisiana board keeps doctor's inappropriate history hush-hush

Doctors Behaving Badly: Sixty-somethings, beware of this inappropriate Louisiana internist with a secret past

Doctors Behaving Badly: Kentucky weight loss doctor ordered to reform his battering ways

Doctors Behaving Badly: Medical boards should drop the stone tools, join the digital age