Sexual relations between doctors and patients

It undoubtedly belongs in the chapter on sexual offenses sexually motivated crimes that doctors commit on their patients. This includes a wide range of crimes from sexual abuse of children and young people after sexually violent offences. Such acts are of course not completely unknown, but fortunately they rarely occur. It has been around since the time of Hippocrates general agreement on the inadmissibility of sexual relations between doctors and their patients.

The occurrence of intimate contacts between doctors and patients is generally underestimated. Only a small percentage of doctors (and women doctors) are willing to admit such a relationship. The majority of doctors who admit sexual contact with a patient claim that it was an isolated event that did not last long. For some doctors, sex is with patients abuse of authority and certain power over the patient. There are other times misused gratitude patient. Most of such offenses are committed by male doctors on female patients. Young patients are more at risk. Relationships between female doctors and patients are not unknown. However, there are significantly fewer of them than those first mentioned. They also don't have that abusive character.

Those doctors who repeatedly engage in intimate relationships with patients tend to suffer their consequences flout. Some claim that they benefit the patient. However, the vast majority of research shows the clear harmfulness of intimate contact between a doctor and a patient.

The physician should realize that even non-sexual touching they must address their patients carefully. It is not always so easy to distinguish between sexual and non-sexual touches, especially during palpation of the genitals and their surroundings. It is never possible to completely rule out a doctor-patient romantic relationship. In such a case, the rule should be to end the therapeutic relationship immediately. However, even if this condition is met, sexual contact may be unethical. Especially if such a relationship was created by abuse of the role of a doctor.

A very important area of ​​these phenomena is their prevention. It is necessary to know about the possibility of similar relationships. Doctors should fix their convictions about the necessity, ask for the supervision of a more experienced doctor, if they find themselves in a state of emotional dependence on their patients. Abused patients are usually reluctant to report their seducer and participate in their punishment.

There is, of course, also the very infrequent problem of sex harassment of medical staff by patients. More than half of the clinically practicing medical students and most of the nurses become the object of such activities at least once.

Reference
Author: '''doc. MUDr. Jaroslav Zvěřina, CSc.' (head of Sexuologického ústavu 1. LF a VFN)''

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