Arriving at the bathroom, Aja was still sifting through mental images, trying to get a grip. “You going to go out there and accuse him of this?” she says she asked herself. “Nobody’s going to believe you. You are clearly still drugged, and you’re not in a position to go out there and say something and then pass out. But I know I’m in danger. And I’m like, You’ve got to get out of here.”

It would be four more hours before Aja left the Emergency Department, alone. Hospital video shows her dressed in her winter coat and fedora-style hat, moving unsteadily toward the exit. In her left hand, she carries a large plastic bag into which she had stuffed her hospital gown and the bedding, to be used, she hoped, as forensic evidence.

Last June, a study by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine found that the incidence of sexual harassment within academic medical centers was unparalleled in any surveyed profession except the military. “Hospitals are basically hotels,” says Tim Johnson, an OB/GYN at the University of Michigan who worked on the study. “You’ve got beds and people staying in the beds. You’ve got cleaning people. You’ve got food service. You’ve got doctors wandering through the place late at night. It’s kind of like a hunting ground. Hospitals are like hunting grounds.” Although the NASEM report did not tally sexual abuse or assault of patients by doctors, an investigation by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution found 450 such documented cases from 2016 to 2017. In half of those, the doctors are still practicing medicine. Last year, 17 women sued New York-Presbyterian/Columbia hospital for damages, claiming their gynecologist, Robert Hadden, had touched them inappropriately, often without gloves, and given them prolonged breast exams. In 2016, Hadden was convicted for sex crimes but received no jail time.

Source: The Abusive Behavior of Ex-Mount Sinai Doctor David Newman