Dr. Nikita Levy was a gynecologist affiliated with Johns Hopkins. He secretly photographed and videotaped women’s bodies in the examining room. When I say secretly, I mean without their knowledge or consent. Dr. Levy apparently wore a pen-like camera around his neck to accomplish the deeds.
In February, 2013, an employee alerted hospital authorities which forced the doctor to turn over his camera. Investigators discovered 1,200 videos and 140 images stored on servers in his home.
Dr. Levy committed suicide 10 days later.
In fall, 2013, a class action suit was filed against John Hopkins alleging the hospital should have known about the doctor’s photography hobby.
“A forensic psychologist and a post-traumatic stress specialist interviewed the plaintiffs and placed each woman into a category based on trauma level. That will determine how much money each one will receive.”
The hospital system agreed to distribute $190 million among 8,000 patients.
“The incidents traumatized thousands of women, even though their faces were not visible in the images and it could not be established with certainty which patients were recorded or how many. Johns Hopkins declined to comment to The Associated Press.”
Hopkins sent out letters to the gynecologist’s entire patient list last year apologizing to the women and urging them to seek care with other Hopkins specialists.
I’m sure there are lessons to be learned from such a case. But they seem so obvious.
What are the lessons? They don’t seem so obvious to me. This guy was a deviant. Once he was discovered he was stopped. The only lesson would be not to cover this kind of stuff up. Am I missing something?
There is not enough information to base an opinion on this case. Is it possible the doc was collecting photo-documentation of GYN pathology, or was this certainly used in a nefarious or pornographic nature?
When a GYN physician posts before and after vaginoplasty photos on the web, is informed consent needed? Or if a urologist posts before and after hypospadias repair photos, does he need to get consent? Something Clintonian about this.
Just how was the hospital supposed to know about the physician’s “hobby”?
And I agree with Dr. Mobley, what are the lessons???
My personal take is that Hopkins handled this mess well.
Johns Hopkins probably could have fought and won assorted legal battles. For all we know, the majority of women were “not injured” in the legal sense. The images apparently were never found anywhere other than the doctor’s server at home. The images were not distributed.
But Johns Hopkins stepped up: they investigated, apologized, did their best to identify which patients might have been affected, created a significant $$$ pool to compensate those affected, – and crafted a formula for determining such compensation / victim.
Some organizations handle damage control poorly. Some do it better.
Given the potential reputational injury associated with the headlines, I believe the amount Hopkins paid out is less than what they would have lost if they had stonewalled.
Before receiving checks, victims should have to identify themselves in a photograph. If they can’t, then what is the harm?
How could this be Hopkins’ fault? How do you screen employees for that level of evil? Is it standard practice for hospitals to hire the NSA to screen for hidden cameras? (I wonder whether there is a prior incident in this guy’s file.)
I can tell you that if I found out that my mohel kept a video of my circumcision on his computer I wouldn’t be bothered a bit. In fact, i may find it a little amusing.
But if there were a large fund and I could get rich by being “traumatized?” Hmm…I’m starting to have trouble sleeping and I can’t go to work just thinking about it…when I can I see one of those “post-traumatic stress specialists?” I don’t know if he took any video at all, or if he even shot one of me, but he hasn’t proved he didn’t do it and that is causing me anxiety and that is his fault.
I imagine the “yuck” factor alone is enough to traumatize you if you know this guy examined and photographed you. Unfortunately, Johns Hopkins is along for the ride because they hired him and they have the deepest pockets. There are no lessons, though. Oh, I have one! Don’t hire perverts? All things considered, they did seem to do a better job than most big institutions at cleaning up the mess.
Here’s another angle: not a single one of those photos escaped the hard drive of this doctor. no names were attached. no patient knew it was done. Why should any of them get a nickel? Because the hospital told them and they were traumatized by the hospital telling them. So if the hospital didn’t tell them they wouldn’t have suffered.
Just like a no-code patient who is resuscitated can sue for wrongful life, i could imagine some lawyer taking the case of one of these informed former patients and suing for infliction of harm.
The hospital should have acknowledged it happened, said that there were no names and no distribution, and just ended the entire thing.
At the least, only patients who recognized the photos of themselves should be able to get rewards…and i bet most women couldn’t pick themselves out of a line up of genitals 😉