In this image provided by the Conway (Ark.) Police Department, Robert Rook is seen in this June 3, 2016, photo. An Associated Press investigation finds that even as Hollywood moguls, elite journalists... (Associated Press) 
 
 In this image provided by the Conway (Ark.) Police Department, Robert Rook is seen in this June 3, 2016, photo. An Associated Press investigation finds that even as Hollywood moguls, elite journalists and politicians have been pushed out of their jobs or resigned amid allegations of sexual misconduct,... (Associated Press) 
 
 In this image provided by the Conway (Ark.) Police Department, Robert Rook is seen in this June 3, 2016, photo. An Associated Press investigation finds that even as Hollywood moguls, elite journalists and politicians have been pushed out of their jobs or resigned amid allegations of sexual misconduct,... (Associated Press) In this image provided by the Conway (Ark.) Police Department, Robert Rook is seen in this June 3, 2016, photo. An Associated Press investigation finds that even as Hollywood moguls, elite journalists... (Associated Press) 
 
 WASHINGTON (AP) — The first time that Dr. Anthony Bianchi came onto a patient, California's medical board alleged, the gynecologist placed a chair against the exam room door, put his fingers into the woman's vagina and exposed his erect penis. 
 
 The second time, the board claimed, he told a patient that he couldn't stop staring at her breasts and recounted a dream in which he performed oral sex on her in the office. 
 
 The third time, the board charged, he told a pregnant patient suffering from vaginal bleeding that she shouldn't shave her pubic hair before her next visit, as he was getting too excited. 
 
 These episodes led to disciplinary actions by the state's medical board in 2012 and in 2016. Bianchi agreed not contest the charges, and he held onto his medical license. Under a settlement with California's medical board, he agreed to seek therapy and refrain from treating women during five years of probation. 
 
 Bianchi did not respond to telephone messages from The Associated Press left for him at the workers' compensation clinic in Fresno, California, where he now evaluates occupational health claims. 
 
 In recent months, Hollywood moguls, elite journalists and top politicians have been pushed out of their jobs or resigned their posts in the wake allegations of sexual misconduct. In contrast, the world of medicine is often more forgiving, according to an AP investigation. 
 
 When the doctors are disciplined, the punishment often consists of a short suspension paired with mandatory therapy that treats sexually abusive behavior as a symptom of an illness or addiction, the AP found. 
 
 Decades of complaints that the physician disciplinary system is too lenient on sex-abusing doctors have produced little change in the practices of state medical boards. And the #MeToo campaign and the rapid push in recent months to increase accountability for sexual misconduct in American workplaces do not appear to have sparked a movement toward changing how medical boards deal with physicians who act out sexually against patients or staffers. 
 
 The sentencing of Larry Nassar, a former doctor for the U.S. Olympic gymnastics program convicted of abusing more than 150 women and girls, has put a high-profile case of physician misconduct in the spotlight. But across the country, most doctors accused of sexual misconduct avoid a medical license review entirely. A study last year found that two-thirds of doctors who were sanctioned by their employers or paid a settlement as the result of sex misconduct claims never faced medical board discipline. 
 
 "There's been a failure of the medical community to take a stand against the issue," said Azza Abbudagga, a health services researcher with nonprofit advocacy organization Public Citizen. 
 
 She published a report recently detailing sexual misconduct among physicians. Its findings showed that of the 253 doctors reported to the National Practitioner Data Bank for having been sanctioned by their respective hospitals or health care organizations for sexual misconduct, or paid a settlement that stemmed from such an allegation, 170 of them were not disciplined by state medical boards, even though all boards have access to the reports filed with the data bank. 
 
 "They could tell the public that they will investigate every single case. There are many things that can be done, even just having a policy of zero tolerance," she said. "If every single hospital would just take a stand and issue a statement saying clearly that any sexual misconduct with patients won't be tolerated and that there will be consequences including permanently revoking the medical license of every doctor found guilty." 
 
 Current guidelines from the Federation of State Physician Health Programs, which represents doctor rehab programs in 47 states, are largely silent on handling sexual misconduct treatment and describe sexual harassment as a "cause of impairment" in a doctor. Programs to treat doctor impairment are inherently supposed to be "nondisciplinary," per the federation's guidelines. 
 
 Linda Bresnahan, who heads the federation, said its guidelines are being rewritten and, despite their language, should not be applied to sexual misbehavior. A statement provided by the federation says only about half of doctor rehab programs nationwide accept doctors accused of sexual misconduct, a choice the group considers to be "a local issue beyond the purview of national guidance." 
 
 The harm committed by sexually abusive doctors is aggravated by the personal nature of the doctor-patient relationship, according to experts and doctors' victims. 
 
 When Marissa White came to Dr. Gunwant Dhaliwal in 2007 for neck pain after a car accident, he reached under her shirt and into her bra, grabbing her breasts. 
 
 A jury convicted him of misdemeanor battery in the case, and Florida's medical board concluded that his crime demonstrated his "lack of good moral character" and "lack of worthiness" to practice medicine. But despite that finding — and at least six other similar allegations made by women patients and employees, both before and after the incident with White, according to court cases and police complaints — Dhaliwal can still be found practicing at his Tampa-area urgent care clinics. 
 
 "I had to sit there in front of him, look him in the eye, they made their guilty verdict and that's it, nothing came of it," White told the AP of her experience at trial. She still lives in Florida, but won't even go to the neighborhood where Dhaliwal practices medicine. 
 
 "He should have lost his license a long time ago. He should have lost it the first time it happened." 
 
 But his office manager told the AP that, while the Florida board referred him to the state's impaired physician network for evaluation, nothing came of it. 
 
 "They did an evaluation and did not find anything wrong," the woman told the AP. "They don't do any treatment." 
 
 The office manager, who refused to provide the AP with her full name, noted that Dhaliwal had not had any new complaints brought against him since his settlement with the medical board. When the AP asked to speak with Dhaliwal, she said that he was declining on the advice of his lawyers. 
 
 Dhaliwal did not respond to requests for comment left with his clinic's staff or a voicemail left with his lawyer. 
 
 Examples of problematic behavior are easy to find in states across the country. 
 
 In Arkansas, Dr. Robert Rook was allowed to keep his family practice open, so long as he's chaperoned, despite facing multiple criminal charges for rape. Prosecutors subsequently downgraded the charges to more than 20 counts of sexual assault in the second- and third-degree, charges for which Rook says he is innocent. 
 
 Rook did not return phone messages left with a secretary at his Conway office. He is set to face trial later this year. 
 
 The Idaho State Board of Medicine in May reinstated the license of Richard Pines, a child and adolescent psychiatrist who lost his license in 2013 after the board accused him of having sexual relationships with four former patients, including taking nude photos of a 14-year-old and convincing the boys that he needed to practice giving naked massages to keep his medical license. 
 
 The state's highest court in 2015 ruled that Pines had engaged in sexual misconduct, but determined that two of the four alleged victims were not former patients. The court remanded Pines' case to a lower court and vacated his punishment, instead ordering the board to re-evaluate the scope of disciplinary action based on the charges the court upheld. The court's order also blasted the board for being impartial, accusing its members of "passionately railing" against Pines in its decision. 
 
 The AP reached out to Pines' former employers and contacted his most recent attorneys, but was unable to reach him. The AP also left a message for a biller at Sage Health Care, where Pines still processes invoices. The receptionist said Pines bills through the office but was unable to provide more details about his current practice. 
 
 State-authorized programs that attempt to oversee the rehabilitation of doctors who have committed sexual misconduct aren't always forthcoming about their methods. In Florida, the Professional's Resource Network, which the state medical board assigned to evaluate Gunwant Dhaliwal after his battery conviction, asked the AP to provide detailed questions and a list of sources before it would answer questions. 
 
 After the AP provided the head of the program, Alexis Polles, with basic questions about the program's approach to clearing doctors for return to work after instances of sexual abuse, she declined to answer any of them. 
 
 The lenience of penalties for sexually abusive doctors sometimes a source of frustration even for members of the medical board who administer the discipline, according to Jason Rosenberg, a former chairman of the Florida medical board. 
 
 "This is incredibly inappropriate," Rosenberg said during one 2013 meeting when Florida's medical board allowed James Yelton-Rossello, a psychiatrist alleged to have molested jailed psychiatric patients, to keep his license. The settlement with the Florida board of medicine did not require Yelton-Rossello to admit guilt. 
 
 "You can't do this and serve french fries," Rosenberg said at that meeting, citing fast food restaurants' policies against hiring sex offenders. "I'm ashamed of what's going on here." 
 
 Yelton-Rossello's lawyer did not respond to telephone messages or an email request for comment. 
 
 Some medical boards blame administrative law judges for tying their hands from seeking harsher punishments. 
 
 In an interview last year, Rosenberg said he responded to an administrative law judge's refusal to uphold a different license revocation by attempting to compel that doctor to display a sign stating "I molest patients" in his office. 
 
 Rosenberg's effort failed, though some doctors have been required to post signs in their office stating that they must be chaperoned in the presence of female patients. 
 
 Bob Cohen, the chief judge in Florida's division of administrative hearings, rejected the idea that administrative law judges are responsible for watering down the punishments of sexually abusive doctors. He said the board of medicine could seek to override administrative law decisions they disagree with, something the Florida board acknowledged in a statement to the AP. 
 
 "One of the reasons they don't always appeal is they have a lot of cases," Cohen said of state health officials. He acknowledged, however, that "consistency" was a goal in punishments, and that past leniency shown to doctors sets a precedent for weaker punishments in the present day. 
 
 The question of doctor punishments is part of a larger problem in the medical field. Numerous factors, including hospitals' disinclination to report abusive doctors, to shortfalls in a private, interstate system meant to flag them to future employers, and patients' simple reluctance to challenge a medical professional, skew the field in doctors' favor, according to a 2016 investigation by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. 
 
 Some doctors who are reported to medical boards for sexual misconduct receive reprimands instead of suspensions. G. Eric Nielson, a medical malpractice attorney in Utah, says that's because doctors tend to try to protect other doctors as much as possible. 
 
 "There's an institutional bias on the part of the medical review board," he said. "They're generally doctors, they work very hard to get their medical degrees and they're very, very disinclined to yank the license of another doctor. The primary focus is: Let's take care of the doctor and help him get through this problem." 
 
 A medical board in California in 2009 revoked the license of Dr. Kamron Hakhamimi after it ruled that his conduct constituted abuse, neglect and exploitation when he prescribed powerful drugs to a woman he met online and then had sex with her; he had previously pleaded no contest to a pair of misdemeanor charges stemming from the incident. But the board stayed the revocation in favor of seven years' probation and a requirement that he complete an ethics class and a course on professional boundaries, though the California Department of Health Care Services barred Hakhamimi from participating in any federally funded programs for 12 years. 
 
 When contacted for comment, Hakhamimi said, "Nothing happened in the clinic. No medical malpractice, no suspension." When asked whether the courses were effective, he said, "they're mandatory for a reason: It's a business," and then hung up. 
 
 Sexually abusive physicians are not generally required to apologize or even acknowledge having acted inappropriately in order to keep their license. Three years after his misdemeanor battery conviction, for example, Florida doctor Dhaliwal was acquitted of molesting another patient. He took the opportunity to issue a news release calling the women who have accused him of misconduct liars motivated by greed. 
 
 In email statement, Florida Medical Board spokesman Brad Dalton said the doctor disciplinary boards "do not have the legal authority to force a physician to speak or place a gag order on them to prevent them from doing so." 
 
 In practice, even some lawyers who represent doctors find the physician health programs to be problematic. 
 
 David Spicer, who has represented doctors facing medical board discipline in Florida, says the state's doctor rehabilitation program isn't well designed to evaluate or treat sexual misbehavior. The program's key component, he said, is a "one-size-fits-all" requirement that doctors engage in therapy sessions and not get into trouble for a specified period, generally five years. 
 
 Spicer said Florida's program, run by an independent organization called the Physician Research Network, does a better job dealing with doctors' who abuse alcohol or drug, but it hasn't been effective at evaluating or treating doctors with sexual problems. 
 
 Experts in the treatment of sexual misbehavior question whether the treatments mandated for doctors who molest patients are even appropriate for such misconduct. 
 
 "It's insufficient," said Rory Reid, a UCLA psychology professor who studies addiction and hypersexual behavior. While some types of sexual behavior, such as the compulsive viewing of pornography, might best be addressed through addiction treatment therapy, rehabilitation programs for sex offenders typically focus on restitution and empathy for a person's victims. 
 
 "We have clinical trials for everything underneath the sun," Reid said. "But there's not one clinical trial that I'm aware of on the efficacy of treatment for doctors who have engaged in sexual misconduct." ||||| Ryon Horne/AJC 
 
 In Kentucky, Dr. Ashok Alur was examining an infection on a patient’s abdomen when he entered forbidden territory. He told the patient she had sexy underwear. Then, he rubbed her and placed his mouth on her genitals. The patient pushed him away and went to police. 
 
 “It was so beautiful,” the doctor told her later, when she confronted him. “I couldn’t resist.” 
 
 In Missouri, Dr. Milton Eichmann asked a woman badly injured in a sexual assault if she liked being tied up during sex, whether she was easily stimulated and whether she liked to be urinated on. He then told the patient, who was seeing the doctor for treatment of urinary problems, that he was being aroused. 
 
 In California, a patient was leaving an appointment with Dr. Mandeep Behniwal, a psychiatrist, when the doctor put his hand down her blouse, grabbed her breast out of her bra and placed his mouth on it. He then exposed himself and ejaculated on her hand. 
 
 In New Mexico, Dr. Twana Sparks for years performed genital exams she said were for screening on ear, nose and throat patients who were under anesthesia and hadn’t given consent, the state medical board said. In Texas, Dr. Philip Leonard fondled patients’ breasts or pressed his erections against them during exams, 17 women reported. In Georgia, a patient who saw Dr. Jacob Ward for a back rash and facial redness said the doctor exposed and fondled her breasts and put his hands down her pants. 
 
 In each of these cases, described in public records, the doctors either acknowledged what they’d done or authorities, after investigating, believed the accusations. While the scale and scope of the physicians’ misdeeds varied tremendously, all were allowed to keep their white coats and continue seeing patients, as were hundreds of others like them across the nation. 
 
 In a national investigation, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution examined documents that described disturbing acts of physician sexual abuse in every state. Rapes by OB/GYNs, seductions by psychiatrists, fondling by anesthesiologists and ophthalmologists, and molestations by pediatricians and radiologists. 
 
 Victims were babies. Adolescents. Women in their 80s. Drug addicts and jail inmates. Survivors of childhood sexual abuse. 
 
 But it could be anyone. Some patients were sedated when they were sexually assaulted. Others didn’t realize at first what had happened because the doctor improperly touched them or photographed them while pretending to do a legitimate medical exam. 
 
 Some doctors were disciplined over a single episode of sexual misconduct. A few physicians — with hundreds of victims — are among the nation’s worst sex offenders. But the toll can’t be measured by numbers alone. For patients, the violations can be life-altering. The betrayal even pushed some to suicide. 
 
 How do doctors get away with exploiting patients for years? 
 
 Some victims say nothing. Intimidated, confused or embarrassed, they fear that no one will take their word over a doctor’s. Colleagues and nurses stay silent. 
 
 Hospitals and health care organizations brush off accusations or quietly push doctors out, the investigation found, without reporting them to police or licensing agencies. 
 
 Society condemns sexual misconduct by most citizens and demands punishment. A teenage boyfriend and girlfriend in North Carolina were arrested for “sexting” nude pictures of themselves to each other. A Georgia woman was placed on a sex offender registry for having sex when she was 19 with a 15-year-old who lied about his age. A Pennsylvania teacher who had sex with an 18-year-old student was dubbed a predator and sent to prison. 
 
 But when a physician is the perpetrator, the AJC found, the nation often looks the other way. 
 
 Physician-dominated medical boards gave offenders second chances. Prosecutors dismissed or reduced charges, so doctors could keep practicing and stay off sex offender registries. Communities rallied around them. 
 
 Erin Vance, who was sexually assaulted by an Oregon physician while she was under anesthesia, said the doctor should have been stopped long before she was wheeled into an operating room. He’d been reported by another patient years earlier. 
 
 “I keep going back to the ‘Do no harm’ aspect of the Hippocratic oath,” Vance said. “I mean, I couldn’t move. I was completely at the mercy of whoever was there, and it turned out that the person who was there was a serial predator.” 
 
 RYON HORNE / AJC Erin Vance was one of at least 12 women sexually assaulted by anesthesiologist Dr. Frederick Field as they lay incapacitated at a hospital in The Dalles, Ore. 
 
 Video: Hear in Erin’s own words the impact on being a victim of sexual abuse from a doctor 
 
 BRUSHED OFF AS RARE 
 
 The Roman Catholic Church, the military, the Boy Scouts, colleges and universities. They have all withered under the spotlight of sexual misconduct scandals and promised that abuse will no longer be swept under the rug. 
 
 The medical profession, however, has never taken on sexual misconduct as a significant priority. And layer upon layer of secrecy makes it nearly impossible for the public, or even the medical community itself, to know the extent of physician sexual abuse. 
 
 “There just isn’t accurate data,” said Dr. Gene Abel, an Atlanta physician who is a nationally recognized expert in evaluating sexual misconduct by professionals. 
 
 The AJC launched its national investigation a year ago after reaching a surprising finding in Georgia: two-thirds of the doctors disciplined in the state for sexual misconduct were permitted to practice again. 
 
 Today, after months of unearthing rarely viewed documents and tracking some cases from beginning to end, the AJC is exposing a phenomenon of physician sexual misconduct that is tolerated — to one degree or another — in every state in the nation. 
 
 The AJC obtained and analyzed more than 100,000 disciplinary documents and other records from across the country to find cases that may have involved sexual misconduct. Then reporters identified more than 3,100 doctors who were publicly disciplined since Jan. 1, 1999 after being accused of sexual infractions. More than 2,400 were sanctioned for violations that clearly involved patients. The rest were disciplined for sexual harassment of employees or for crimes such as child pornography, public indecency or sexual assault. 
 
 Yet many, if not most, cases of physician sexual misconduct remain hidden. The AJC investigation discovered that state boards and hospitals handle some cases secretly. In other cases, medical boards remove once-public orders from their websites or issue documents that cloak sexual misconduct in vague language. 
 
 When cases do come to the public’s attention, they are often brushed off by the medical establishment as freakishly rare. While the vast majority of the nation’s 900,000 doctors do not sexually abuse patients, the AJC found the phenomenon is akin to the priest scandal: It doesn’t necessarily happen every day, but it happens far more often than anyone has acknowledged. 
 
 ‘A DELICATE BALANCE’ 
 
 Over and over again, records show, predatory physicians took advantage of a doctor’s special privilege — the daily practice of asking trusting people to disrobe in a private room and permit themselves to be touched. 
 
 Offenses ranged from lewd comments during intimate exams to molestation, masturbation by the doctor in front of the patient, swapping drugs for sex and even rape. Because many orders are vague or undetailed, it isn’t always clear if a doctor claimed the patient consented. However, the profession says consent is never a defense because of the power imbalance between doctors and patients. 
 
 David Clohessy, the executive director of SNAP, a support and advocacy organization for people sexually abused by priests, doctors and others, said many Americans view physicians with too much deference and automatic respect. 
 
 “We are so reliant on them, we are so helpless and vulnerable and literally in pain often times when we go in there. We just have to trust them,” Clohessy said. 
 
 “So when they cross the boundary and their hands go into the wrong places, we are in shock, we are paralyzed, we’re confused, we’re scared. We just do not want to believe, first of all, that a doctor is capable of this , and secondly that their colleagues and supervisors will not address this immediately and effectively when we report it.” 
 
 Authorities say they take allegations of sexual misconduct seriously but sometimes compromise to settle cases without going through protracted battles. 
 
 Leanne Diakov, general counsel for the Kentucky Board of Medical Licensure, said medical boards have to consider everything from the state’s need for physicians to the limits imposed by state law. In Kentucky, for example, doctors whose licenses are revoked by the medical board have a legal right to petition for reinstatement two years later. 
 
 “It’s always a balance,” Diakov said. “Obviously, the public looks at it and says, ‘Oh my gosh, how are they letting this physician practice.’ It’s a delicate balance between protecting public health resources, protecting patients and acting within the statutory authority that the legislature has given you.” 
 
 ‘LOST MY JUDGMENT’ 
 
 Sexual contact between a doctor and a patient, even if ostensibly consensual, is strictly forbidden. In ethical terms, it’s a never event. In a legal sense, it can be a crime. Physicians know it’s a line that can’t be crossed — it’s a prohibition as old as the Hippocratic oath. 
 
 Yet, the AJC found, even doctors who molest patients or subject them to bizarre exams for deviant purposes are frequently seen as sympathetic figures in need of therapy instead of predators who must answer to police. They get a diagnosis. They get a treatment. They come back. 
 
 Many are cleared to practice again after going to recovery centers where they take lie-detector tests and admit transgressions. They are expected to learn empathy and work through their issues, in some programs through art and yoga and in at least one through equestrian therapy. Others, seen in need only of further education, return to practice after attending weekend “boundary” classes at hotels or college campuses. 
 
 Only 11 states have a law requiring medical authorities to report to police or prosecutors when they suspect a sexual crime has been committed against an adult. 
 
 Doctors spend years in costly medical schools and training programs. They’re smart. They’re admired. They’re needed. Like the giant banks that were once viewed as “too big to fail,” the nation’s doctors are often considered too precious to discard. 
 
 Some of the disciplined doctors interviewed by the AJC expressed remorse. Some felt unfairly targeted by patients hoping to profit from a lawsuit. Others said they were frustrated that professionally damaging reports kept popping up years later, when they viewed their actions as brief lapses in judgment, not a life of misconduct. Most said they had paid dearly for the mistakes. 
 
 Behniwal, the California psychiatrist, said the patient who accused him initiated the sexual contact and he didn’t stop himself quickly enough. “For half a minute, I lost my judgment,” he said. Sparks, the New Mexico physician, said she was conducting cancer screening exams when she touched patients, with no sexual intent. But she said she paid a huge professional price because she didn’t have the patients’ consent. Eichmann, now retired and focused on charity work, said he was dedicated to helping his patients and regretted making inappropriate comments. 
 
 ‘SALVAGE THAT PHYSICIAN’ 
 
 Some states are apparently more forgiving than others when disciplining doctors in sexual misconduct cases. Georgia and Kansas, for example, allowed two of every three doctors publicly disciplined for sexual misconduct to return to practice, orders on board websites show. In Alabama, it was nearly three out of every four. In Minnesota, it was four of every five. 
 
 Nationwide, the AJC found that of the 2,400 doctors publicly disciplined for sexual misconduct, half still have active medical licenses today. 
 
 Larry Dixon, the executive director of the Alabama Board of Medical Examiners, has heard the argument that doctors who engage in sexual misconduct should be barred from practice. He doesn’t buy it. 
 
 “If you graduate a class of more than 100 people out of the University of Alabama medical school, the resources that have been poured into that education almost demand that you try to salvage that physician — if it’s possible,” said Dixon, who has led the Alabama board for 35 years. 
 
 Stop and think, he said, about how badly many communities need their doctors. 
 
 “You do not think so? Then leave Atlanta and go down to a little Georgia town and get sick,” Dixon said. “See how far they have to go to find a doctor.” 
 
 ‘THE UGLY REALITY’ 
 
 Office of Dr. Philip Leonard in Austin, Texas. He continues to practice despite accusations of sexual misconduct from 17 women. 
 
 When examining cases, the AJC found all sorts of surprising twists allowing doctors to keep working. 
 
 Dr. Philip Leonard was a well-respected neurologist in Austin, Texas, when the first report of sexual misconduct came in. After one patient told police in 2001 that the doctor had rubbed his erection against her during an exam, 16 other patients came forward making similar complaints. 
 
 “It depended on where he was, but the way I like to put it (is) he led with his penis,” one told the Texas medical board, describing how Leonard pressed against her while seeing her for a head injury. 
 
 Yet today the 65-year-old doctor practices without restriction. 
 
 The medical board initially decided the complaints were credible and suspended Leonard’s license. But it later changed its mind after one patient’s criminal case went to trial and resulted in the doctor’s acquittal. Because there was no forensic evidence, the case hung on the patient’s credibility, which was attacked by the defense when she testified. The jury never heard about the other 16 women. 
 
 “It’s sickening,” said Cathryn Blue, the woman whose case went to trial. 
 
 RYON HORNE / AJC Cathryn Blue of Lockhart, Texas, near Austin, accused neurologist Philip Leonard of sexual misconduct after leaving his office in August 2001. Sixteen other women eventually came forward, making similar complaints to police and the Texas licensing board. Leonard was acquitted in Blue's case. Prosecutors did not take the other cases to trial. 
 
 The medical board reached a deal allowing Leonard to return to practice as long as he saw only male patients for 10 years, a restriction that ended in 2014. He declined to be interviewed for this story. 
 
 The physician who served as the board’s president at the time acknowledged that the agreement reflected how the board compromised to reach settlements doctors would accept without costly appeals. 
 
 “What (Leonard) did was clearly an abuse of his power over these women,” said Dr. Lee Anderson, a Fort Worth ophthalmologist. “But the ugly reality is, what can we actually achieve?” 
 
 ‘THE RIGHT THINGS’ 
 
 When the AJC examined Dr. Jacob Ward’s history, it found the physician is still practicing in suburban Atlanta even though he pleaded guilty after being accused of molesting a female patient. 
 
 The patient in 2011 told Woodstock police that Ward squeezed her buttocks, pulled up her shirt and felt her breasts and touched her genitals during an exam. 
 
 After Ward’s arrest, the Georgia medical board placed him on probation with restrictions that included a sexual misconduct treatment program and supervision and monitoring of his practice. He also was directed to have a chaperone with female patients. 
 
 Ward later pleaded guilty to misdemeanor sexual battery and received two years’ probation. 
 
 But documents obtained by the AJC reveal a startling back story: Two other patients had made similar charges against Ward four years earlier and the board did nothing other than write a “personal and confidential” letter to the doctor expressing its “concern regarding exams and patients of the opposite sex.” 
 
 Speaking at Ward’s sentencing, the victim in the 2011 case said she had recently learned, on her own, of the previous complaints and that it made her pain even greater. 
 
 “How he could still be able to have a practice and see patients right now is beyond me,” the woman said at the hearing. 
 
 Cherokee County Judge Dee Morris found the victim’s statement so compelling that he refused to go along with the initial plea agreement, which called for Ward to be sentenced as a first offender. 
 
 Ward, who now practices in Canton, declined to discuss his case in detail when contacted by the AJC. 
 
 “I’ve done everything I’m supposed to do, per the Georgia board,” he said. “I’m doing the right things.” 
 
 ‘IT’S FRUSTRATING’ 
 
 Doctors forced to stop practicing because of sexual misconduct in one state may get a second chance in another. 
 
 Alabama revoked Dr. Oscar Almeida Jr.’s license in 2002 after four female patients complained of various improprieties, including fondling and kissing and inappropriate vaginal exams. The Mobile physician steadfastly denied any wrongdoing and fought the decision in the courts, but the board’s ruling was upheld by the Alabama Supreme Court in 2004. 
 
 A year later, Almeida applied for a Mississippi license. His request was approved, with the State Board of Medical Licensure saying the doctor “would be an asset to the State of Mississippi.” In 2007, Alabama reinstated Almeida’s license. Its order cites his boundary training and says “it would be a great loss to the medical community, and to the public in general, if a physician of Dr. Almeida’s obvious skill and ability would never again be able to practice medicine.” 
 
 Some regulators have a dim view of state hopping. Aaron Haslam, a former executive director of the State Medical Board of Ohio, said he grew weary of seeing doctors that Ohio deemed unfit to practice wind up with licenses in other states. 
 
 “It’s frustrating now and it was frustrating then,” he said. “We would try to be tough on an individual that we thought had no business practicing medicine and that individual would lose his license and go set up shop in the state right next to us or in Georgia or in Florida.” 
 
 ‘THE OBVIOUS QUESTION’ 
 
 Even when sexual misconduct ends a doctor’s ability to practice, investigators sometimes uncover a trail of misdeeds that goes back for years or even an entire career, highlighting a system that shielded them. 
 
 Dr. Paul Emerson, a Michigan osteopath, was sentenced to 12 years in federal prison in 2010 after pleading guilty to a scheme in which he gave out bogus prescriptions in exchange for cash or sex. Three people who received his prescriptions overdosed and died. 
 
 When investigators dug into his past to prepare a sentencing memo, they found a long history of sexual misconduct: As an intern at a Detroit area hospital, he drew suspicion for conducting a pelvic exam on a 14-year-old complaining of asthma. In Mississippi, he was discharged from the Air Force after being accused of inappropriately touching female patients, lost his privileges at a hospital for “unprofessional conduct” and was terminated as a prison physician after being sued for sexual harassment by a nurse. 
 
 “It is this court’s belief that you simply were finally being caught and being charged with crimes that were perhaps ongoing for a long period of time,” U.S. District Judge Victoria Roberts said at sentencing. 
 
 In Maryland, the medical board found that Dr. Ramon L. Gonzalez sexually abused female patients, including adolescents, all the way back to medical school in the 1970s. One patient gave birth to his child. But the doctor’s entire history of sexual malfeasance only came to light years later, baffling even those in charge of disciplining doctors. 
 
 “The obvious question,” an administrative law judge wrote in 2002, “is how (Gonzalez) was able to practice medicine for so many years and escape any substantial consequences for his actions.” 
 
 ‘HALF A LOAF IS BETTER THAN NO LOAF’’ 
 
 In many states, physicians who engage in sexual misconduct are treated or disciplined in private, keeping patients in the dark. 
 
 Georgia sometimes uses private consent orders and private agreements, Robert Jeffery, executive director of the state medical board, told the AJC. “Sometimes half a loaf is better than no loaf,” he said, explaining that such orders are used when the board is concerned a public order may not stick if the doctor fights it. 
 
 Public orders, he added, may inhibit doctors from reporting themselves or their peers. “If the response every single time is going to be public suspension, public this, public that, then I think what you would end up with is the unintended consequence of fewer reports,” he said. 
 
 In North Carolina, a public order involving Dr. Darlington Hart revealed how he had been subject to years of private actions and warnings. 
 
 In 2013, the medical board denied his application to have his license reinstated after he had surrendered it in 2011. To justify the denial, the board revealed a history that had been handled almost entirely in private in both North Carolina and South Carolina. 
 
 Allegations against Hart between 2001 and 2010 ranged from inappropriate hugging to sexual assault. All were dealt with through “private letters of concern” and a “private agreement” that required the doctor to use chaperones, take a boundaries course and submit to regular polygraph tests. 
 
 The North Carolina board reversed itself a year later and allowed him to start practicing again. 
 
 “Dr. Hart has always categorically and emphatically denied that he has ever sexually assaulted a co-worker or a patient,” said Alan Schneider, the doctor’s attorney. 
 
 Schneider said private letters do not constitute disciplinary action and that professional evaluations supported Hart’s denials. He said the evidence supported North Carolina’s decision to reinstate the license. 
 
 Jean Brinkley, a board spokeswoman, said the mission of the state’s physician-led board is patient protection, not doctor punishment. 
 
 “They tend to look at misconduct and look at what went wrong and what can we do to fix it,” she said. Private letters, she said, are used as a tool to help physicians improve. 
 
 As far as the public’s right to know, she pointed out that Hart’s history of private letters and confidential board actions was eventually noted in public documents on the board’s website. “At the very least,” she said, “there is a public record that any current, or prospective, patient has the opportunity to see.” 
 
 Dixon, the Alabama board’s executive director, said his board holds out confidentiality as a carrot for those physicians willing to admit their wrongdoing. 
 
 Alabama requires those doctors to be evaluated and treated by top experts. As long as they stick with the program, the information stays confidential. 
 
 “If you are trying to salvage them,” Dixon said, “you do not ruin their reputation.” 
 
 ‘SAY SOMETHING’ 
 
 During his years battling the Catholic Church to get it to stop protecting predatory priests, Clohessy said he learned one lesson well: “Secrecy is the enemy.” 
 
 He said he sees that enemy at work today when it comes to abusive doctors. 
 
 “This tendency on the part of medical boards and medical officials to err on the side of a quiet suspension or a secret, out-of-court deal, that’s a recipe for disaster,” he said. “Crimes are crimes, no matter who commits them. They need to be reported to and investigated by and prosecuted by the independent professionals in law enforcement. Period. Not a panel of your peers, not by some committee of supervisors and not by other people who have earned the same titles you have earned.” 
 
 Vance, who was one of 12 women sexually assaulted by anesthesiologist Dr. Frederick Field as they lay incapacitated at a hospital in The Dalles, Ore., said she found the sweeping nature of the AJC’s findings startling. 
 
 “It would be one thing if it was only one incident, but to find out how prevalent it is, is frightening and angering,” she said. 
 
 Field received a 23-year prison sentence after pleading guilty. Beyond the assaults themselves, another story developed: The hospital, Mid-Columbia Medical Center, knew, or should have known, that Field was dangerous. 
 
 Three years before his arrest in 2011, a patient told a hospital administrator that Field fondled her nipples and placed her hands on his penis. Nurses also had notified hospital leaders in a series of memos in 2010 that, because of Field’s misconduct with a nurse, the staff had agreed “to make it a point to not leave anyone alone in Dr. Field’s presence.” 
 
 The hospital denied that it failed to act on complaints. Even so, a jury in 2013 ordered the hospital to pay Vance and two other victims $2.4 million in damages. 
 
 In a recent interview, Vance said she sensed that Field had kissed her on the lips and pressed her hand against his penis as she was regaining consciousness after surgery in December 2010. However, she didn’t report him to police until she learned of his arrest. At the time of her surgery, she said, she thought she had been dreaming. 
 
 “I remember telling myself, ‘It’s a hospital, how could that be true?’” she said. 
 
 “I hope people learn from that experience, to know that if they suspect something like that, it’s probably true. Don’t be afraid to say something. It can happen. It does happen.” 
 
 — AJC staff writers Johnny Edwards and Alan Judd contributed to this article. ||||| More than 2,400 U.S. doctors have been sanctioned for sexually abusing their patients, according to a new report that, for the first time, surveyed records from all 50 states and reveals the nationwide scope of a problem that may be almost as far-reaching as the scandal involving Catholic priests. 
 
 State medical boards, which oversee physicians, allowed more than half the sanctioned doctors to keep their licenses even after the accusations of sexual abuse were determined to be true, according to a yearlong investigation by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. 
 
 “We found a culture of secrecy,” said Carrie Teegardin, a reporter on the paper’s investigative team for the project. 
 
 “It’s treated with a sort of secrecy that we don’t see in other arenas when we’re talking about allegations this serious,” she told ABC News. “It’s still swept under the rug in so many cases.” 
 
 Some high-profile cases have led to criminal prosecutions. 
 
 In New York City the former head of clinical research at the Mount Sinai hospital emergency room, Dr. David Newman, is facing charges that he abused four of his female patients, including one he allegedly drugged while she was in the ER. 
 
 Newman has pleaded not guilty to charges, and the hospital said he no longer works there. 
 
 If convicted, he could face up to seven years in prison. 
 
 “It doesn’t matter if you’re a famous physician or if you’re a famous anything, you got to follow the law,” said Michael Hestrin, the district attorney in Riverside County, California. 
 
 Hestrin’s office is prosecuting a doctor in his county accused of 26 felony counts of sexual assault. 
 
 Dr. John McGuire has pleaded not guilty to the charges and is being held in jail on a $3 million bond. His license has been suspended by the state medical board. 
 
 According to a civil complaint, McGuire sexually assaulted a patient recovering in a private room from the effects of anesthesia. He allegedly lifted the “plaintiff’s gown and placed his ungloved hands on her bare breasts and felt all around looking for ‘swelling.’” 
 
 In another alleged incident, the lawsuit claims McGuire “rubbed plaintiff’s vagina with an ungloved hand and fingers,” supposedly to check on a rash. 
 
 “Dr. McGuire stands charged of at least three forcible rapes,” according to John Mittelman, a lawyer representing a group of female patients suing McGuire. 
 
 “When you have a predator like Dr. McGuire, they’re not thinking like the rest of us, the rest of doctors,” said Mittelman. “They’re concerned only about one thing, and that’s their personal gratification. How else can you explain a doctor having sex with an unconscious patient?” 
 
 Even after being convicted of sex crimes and losing their licenses, doctors are often able to reapply to practice again. 
 
 Dr. David Mata, once praised on the floor of Congress as a “great humanitarian” and named doctor of the year in Oregon, was accused of 140 counts of sexual abuse of patients. 
 
 He pleaded guilty to six counts of sexual acts with patients but was not sentenced to prison and served his probation at home. 
 
 The California medical board revoked his license, but only after a three-year investigation, during which he was able to see patients, as long as an observer was in the examination room. 
 
 Asked if he wanted to apologize to his patients, Mata told ABC News, through a screen door, that he “empathized” with them but maintained his innocence. 
 
 He is eligible to reapply for his license, although he said he is now retired and does not plan to practice again. 
 
 The Journal-Constitution investigation began with a story about one Georgia doctor that led to efforts to document the problem nationwide. 
 
 By combing through news reports, state medical board records and court files going back 16 years, the Journal-Constitution's reporters compiled a list of physicians who were either convicted in criminal cases or disciplined by state medical boards. 
 
 The reporters found many of the doctors were accused by large numbers of their patients, in most cases females being seen by male doctors. 
 
 “One thing we found that was shocking to us is some of these doctors are the most prolific sex offenders in the country, with hundreds and, in some cases, thousands of victims,” Teegardin said. 
 
 She said doctors who abuse trade on the trust their patients put in them. 
 
 “When you go to a physician, you’re in a private room, and you disrobe because you need to have an exam,” she said. 
 
 Reminiscent of the early days of the Vatican’s handling of sexual abuse allegations involving priests, the American medical establishment has sought to downplay or ignore the issue with doctors. 
 
 “Those who are in charge of licensing physicians have a belief that they can be safely returned to exam rooms,” said Teegardin. 
 
 There are around 900,000 doctors licensed the practice in the U.S., according to the Journal-Constitution. Requests from ABC News to interview the newly elected president of the American Medical Association, Dr. Andrew Gurman, were turned down by association officials. 
 
 The AMA declined to comment specifically on the new report and, when pressed, provided only a copy of the AMA ethical guidelines on sexual misconduct. 
 
 ABC News’ Esther Castillejo contributed to this report.
– Entertainers, journalists, and politicians have lost their careers over sexual misconduct in the age of #MeToo, but it seems doctors have little to worry about. According to an AP investigation, many doctors facing sexual assault charges will keep their medical license and simply go on suspension while taking a kind of addiction-treatment therapy. Most undergo no medical-license review and need only avoid trouble for a five-year period. In one case, Florida doctor Gunwant Dhaliwal was convicted by a jury of misdemeanor battery for grabbing a patient's breasts but still works in the Tampa area. "There's been a failure of the medical community to take a stand against the issue," says a health services researcher. Many factors weigh in doctors' favor, like hospital staffs and patients who are reluctant to accuse them, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported in a 2016 probe. Not to mention that state medical boards are often full of doctors: "They work very hard to get their medical degrees and they're very, very disinclined to yank the license of another doctor," says a medical malpractice lawyer. "The primary focus is: Let's take care of the doctor and help him get through this problem." But the rehabilitation programs don't always work, and either way, doctors who commit a crime are getting away with it. "I had to sit there in front of him, look him in the eye, they made their guilty verdict and that's it, nothing came of it," says the woman groped by Dhaliwal. "He should have lost his license a long time ago."