* possibly triggering *
On Tuesday the San Francisco Chronicle reported Dr. Edward Manougian is facing loss of his medical license for over-prescription of opiates. The story relates that he would give patients prescriptions for "hundreds" of opiod pain pills, highly addictive, and worth thousands of dollars on the street. (One patient was re-selling the pills right in the pharmacy parking lot.) The California Medical Board yanked his prescribing privileges last year when investigation found he ordered patients to take doses of opiates 3-12 times higher than what doctors generally consider a high dose. The article also reports that several federal agencies (FBI, HHS, DEA, Office of Inspector General) have subpoenad his medical records.
Dr. Edward Manougian. A name I shall never forget. I was never his patient and he never prescribed for me. But he also did workplace physicals. About 15 years ago, after I had just started what I thought was my dream job working on the Human Genome Project, Dr. Manougian, during the mandatory physical, held me down and sexually assaulted me. He groped, pinched and bounced my breasts, laughing, and asking if I'd always had "such gigantic tits".
I made 4 attempts to report the assault at work. I was told each time I was making it up but if anything had happened it was my fault. I was told, with eyes glued to my chest, that any man given a chance to "get his hands on all that" of course would do so and would of course comment, so I really had no right to complain. A variation on "she deserved to be raped because her skirt was so short", although in my case it took surgery (which I did eventually have, although the surgeon insisted on a breast exam, a total and horrendous trigger, the last time I've ever had one, before she would operate) to "lengthen my skirt".
I was fired and labeled a troublemaker.
At that time I was a regular poster on Women OnLine. When I discussed the assault, about half the women told me I was making it up. The others all told me what they would have done to stop the assault. Apparently I am the only woman in the world who was unprepared to meet such an emergency. Just a lot more "you are making it up and besides it's your fault". A sexual assault group told me I had not been actually raped (true) and that it was insulting to real rape victims to compare my trivial problem with theirs. But it never felt trivial to me.
Years later, as Safety Officer on a different job, I found out by chance that California requires employers take certain action when a worker reports sexual asault. Needless to say, these actions were not taken. But when I inquired, to see if I could at least report the employer, Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, I was told that like all State Department of Fair Housing and Employment complaints, there was an 11-month window to report and I was long past.
So no justice for me. Now, a tiny, very tiny, bit.
I absolutely do not believe this doctor would, out of a clear blue sky, sexually assault one and only one female patient. Obviously I have no evidence but I am personally convinced there must have been other women. Maybe that's why he wanted his patients over-drugged? I don't know. And he's over 80 now, would probably retire soon. But at least this can get him out of his practice and away from easy pickings. Because no one, no one, believes you when it's a doctor.