Louisville, Ky. (WHAS11) - A Louisville physician has surrendered his license after the state medical licensure board says he touched or made inappropriate sexual remarks to nearly a dozen patients.
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But that doesn't mean he'll have to stop practicing medicine forever.
The medical licensure board says the complaints date back to at least 2001 and while the clinic and the hospitals that oversaw Dr. Hess were alerted to problems, nobody alerted the medical board until last February.
Dr. Michael Hess' disciplinary report doesn't read like most government documents. The contents are very graphic.
Eleven different patients and two employees are quoted at length about alleged sexual indiscretions at the hands of Dr. Hess.
Many of the hundreds of patients Dr. Hess treated at the south end clinic thought highly of him.
Others do not.
"He locked the exam room door and told her she needed to be quiet" the investigator quotes a patient as saying, a patient who admitted having sexual intercourse with Dr. Hess in the exam room 11 times.
Others said he made derogatory comments, gave them kisses on the mouth and touched them repeatedly in inappropriate manners.
The south end clinic began receiving complaints about Dr. Hess in 2001.
At that time, counseling was recommended, but he continued to see patients.
When Jewish Hospital and St. Mary's healthcare entered into a contract with the clinic in 2005, Dr. Hess' file had complaints by employees and a patient for sexually inappropriate behavior.
The relationship continued for more than three years.
A short time after Hess left the practice there; he was investigated by state police for allegedly fondling another patient at a Western Kentucky clinic.
The State Board of Medical Licensure finally issued an emergency suspension order last September.
WHAS11 News went to Dr. Hess' riverfront home in Prospect today to try to talk to him about the discipline, but nobody answered the door.
Under his agreement, Dr. Hess can reapply for his license on September 10th, 2010.
