A sexual relationship with a patient is always something that has the opportunity of having OPMC, Office of Professional Medical Conduct, or OPD, Office of Professional Discipline, coming to visit you. This is unprofessional conduct, by definition. If you do it and they find out about it — and often they do, because there are complaints in this area, they will send you a letter and ask you to come down and explain yourself. You need a lot of help here, because there are ways to deal with this. None of them end up perfectly, but they can end up a lot better than they would have ended up if you just go down by yourself.
Remember, they can interview your employees, they can interview other patients, they can interview coworkers, and they usually have a good bit of information before they write you the letter and ask you to come on down and talk. Going down to the interview knowing that they know certain things and lying to them to their face, that is normally a prescription for disaster. On the other hand, you have to be prepared, and answer the questions as best you can, to minimize the effect. There will be an adverse effect, no doubt, but it can be much less if you handle it correctly and much worse if you handle it incorrectly.
This informational blog post was brought to you by Paul E. Walker, an experienced New York Medical Malpractice Defense Lawyer.
