You can read my previous posts about Larry Nassar here and here.
Yesterday, news broke that the Justice Department has agreed to pay $100 million to settle a case against Dr. Larry Nassar who sexually abused hundreds of gymnasts – male and female. The FBI failed to respond with the “utmost seriousness and urgency that the allegations deserved and required.” Why? It involved a medical professional and individuals assumed that what Nassar was doing was within the standard of care and that the patients just didn’t understand the “nuanced difference” between medical treatment and sexual assault. Do you know what constitutes that “nuanced difference”? Informed consent. True informed consent. Recall, before the FBI examination, Michigan State conducted a sham Title IX investigation where the investigator secretly declared that:
We find that whether medically sound or not, the failure to adequately explain procedures such as these invasive, sensitive procedures, is opening the practice up to liability and is exposing patients to unnecessary trauma based on the possibility of perceived inappropriate sexual misconduct.
This investigations were just like my case where doctors got to dictate the course of the review by invoking the standard of care excuse while having colleagues back them up. And, in my case, the Office of Sexual Misconduct reshaped their own policy by redefining consent to be inclusive of “implied consent.” They got to tell me that I consented. Yes, it is that absurd. Such injustice. The difference is that in the Nassar case, Nassar’s colleagues started turning on him after the media began reporting these stories because they didn’t want their reputation tarnished. No such luck with me. I’m just a guy who dared to ask questions, confront, challenge, and issue multiple formal complaints against female medical “professionals” for sexual misconduct. Call it what it is.
Michigan State eventually paid up after denying and covering everything up. So now the Justice Department has their turn. This is good. I’m glad these long-suffering victims receive the justice they rightfully deserve. But what about the rest of us? It doesn’t matter what the intentions of the actors are. If anybody in the medical community is subjecting any patient to an intimate encounter without express, written consent barring a medical emergency, they are committing sexual abuse. Period.
It’s about consent, not intent.
I’m hoping for the day when all institutions – including the university that denied me justice – get the same treatment.
#MedicalMeToo 