Does consensual doctor-patient sex actually harm the public?

When it comes to disciplinary action, Texas punishes doctors who engage in consensual sex with patients seriously.

Hospitalist Chris Rangel says they’re going overboard.

Consider the cited case, where a doctor who had consensual sex was given a harsher penalty than physicians who were negligent and actually harmed patients.

“A sexual relationship, even a consensual one, between a doctor and their patient is certainly improper,” writes Dr. Rangel. “This is not the issue. Rather, the problem is with the bizarre set of priories that the Texas Medical Board has developed over the last few years in which they have focused more and more on unprofessional conduct violations involving sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll esp. in cases where the harm or potential harm to the public was none or minimal.”

Are they going too far? And, I wonder, how do their punishments compare with those of other states?

Or, as Dr. Rangel writes, is this excessive moralizing simply a “red state” phenomenon?

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