If a doctor is convicted of a sexual crime, especially one involving one of his patients, they face one of the most difficult situations to try to restore the license. The conviction itself will cause the doctor’s license to be revoked. HHHe or she can apply to have it restored after three years. Trying to convince people that you should get your license back after such an egregious breach of trust is very difficult. Normally, the doctor ends up in psychiatric care or psychological counseling for years. At the same time, the doctor has to do medical education studies in order to show that he or she has kept up with medical issues while out of practice, usually about three to four years.
The stain of a sexual conviction is really a difficult one to overcome. You have to go to a hearing and produce psychologists and psychiatrists to say that you realize the gravity of the problem, overcame it, and will not let it happen again. If you can get through the hearing, you may get a recommendation of getting your license back. If you do get a recommendation of restoration, it will be from the Peer Review Committee. Whether they will recommend it to the Board of Regents or not is dependent really upon who is on the committee and how they feel about this sort of subject.
Some doctors just feel that if you have committed this sort of breach of trust, you are simply not going to get your license back. Others feel that people deserve a second chance. It’s impossible to judge in advance as to who is going to be on that review committee, but you have to be able to articulate the problem, admit the problem, and show that you’ve done everything possible to make sure the problem never happens again. That is the way to give yourself at least the best opportunity of trying to get that license back. It’s a difficult row to hoe.
Walker Medical Law serves the greater New York area with quality legal services representing physicians and other medical providers facing legal and license issues. If you need our legal services, contact our New York office for a consultation.
