Scott DesJarlais is a licensed physician and Republican congressman from Tennessee who has voted in Congress against abortion rights. From Wikipedia (click here):
“DesJarlais’ first wife Susan had alleged that her ex-husband engaged in ‘violent and threatening behavior’. Court filings revealed that he had at least four affairs. One was with a female patient. According to the Huffington Post, tapes that DesJarlais himself recorded show that he pressured her to have an abortion after she became pregnant. A second woman came forward, stating that she began dating DesJarlais while she was his patient. She alleges that the two smoked marijuana together and he prescribed pain medications for her while at his house.
“In October 2012, the non-profit group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington requested that the Tennessee Department of Health investigate evidence that DesJarlais had a sexual relationship with a patient, an allegation that could open the congressman to disciplinary action for potentially violating medical ethics. In November 2012, the same group filed another complaint against DesJarlais with the Office of Congressional Ethics, claiming that the Congressman lied about a telephone conversation with a former patient and mistress.
“On November 15, 2012—two weeks after the election—the Chattanooga Times Free Press obtained a transcript of DesJarlais’ 2001 divorce proceeding with his first wife. It revealed that DesJarlais had admitted under oath to at least six sexual relationships with people he came in contact with while chief of staff at Grandview Medical Center in Jasper. Among them were at least two patients. … The transcript also revealed that contrary to his staunch anti-abortion stance as a congressman, he had counseled his then-wife to have two abortions and pressured one of the patients with whom he’d had an affair to get an abortion. Additional transcripts revealed that he had prescribed pain pills to at least one patient with whom he’d had an affair.
“He was later fined $500 by the Tennessee Board of Medical Examiners for the affairs.”
Why even bother to have a medical licensing board if all they do about a doctor who exploited his hospital position to repeatedly have sex with patients, at least one of whom became pregnant and then was pressured by him to abort their baby, is fine him 500 bucks? For a hospital chief of staff, that’s like docking him one hour’s pay for sexually exploiting half a dozen hospital staff, vendors, or patients (it’s not clear who they were). Assuming Tennessee’s medical licensing authority consists of doctors, this seems like a clear case of doctors protecting a misbehaving fellow doctor — and maybe also a case of Republicans protecting a fellow Republican.
Photo: Dr. DesJarlais with one of his children he didn’t kill. I don’t have any pictures of the three dead ones (and wouldn’t post them if I did, out of respect for the deceased).