Doctor who sexually harassed his patients as ‘therapy’

He abused his patients as a treatment method. So when investigators went to arrest him, Darius A. Paduch, a prominent urologist who worked at two of New York’s top hospitals, was surprised by federal prosecutors’ allegations of harassment. In fact, the doctor was convinced that a large number of patients were using the right “treatments” to treat urinary tract pathologies and fertility problems. Therapies that, for the prosecution, are nothing more than harassment of “multiple” patients, all men. Among them are two who have been abused for years, starting when they were young.

investigations

The New York Times sheds light on the case. Paduch was arrested on April 11 and faces several years in prison. Some told their patients from other states that the harassment was “medically necessary and appropriate.” The 55-year-old doctor was held in a cell despite pleading not guilty in federal court in Manhattan. Neither hospital is mentioned in the indictment, where the doctor allegedly abused his victims. However, according to the indictment, Paduch worked at one hospital from 2003 to 2019, and at another from 2019 to this year.

the role of hospitals

According to the news of the USA newspaper, investigations were launched after a series of complaints from patients who said they applied to New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center in Manhattan and Northwell Health in Long Island. Witnesses described how the doctor visited his patients: he asked them to masturbate in front of him while the pornographic images were being projected. Paduch was sometimes insistent on touching patients and using sex toys. Sometimes there was physical contact with the patient, whom the doctor touched inappropriately during the session. Instead, other witnesses reported the contents of some of the messages the doctor received. Messages that have little to do with medical diagnosis and procedures. There would have been at least fourteen cases, but now that the story has come out, someone else might come forward and report being harassed by the doctor.

Doubts are also growing about the role and possible complicity of the hospitals where the doctor works. A case may fuel this suspicion. One of the victims said that in January 2017, a nurse approached her and invited her to speak with another patient suspected of abuse. And finally. In September 2020, a victim decided to report Paduch’s behavior to the hospital administration, but received no response. The risk now is that Paduch isn’t the only one getting in trouble with the law.

Source: Today IT

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