Under the consent order approved by the board, Dr. Mary Jane Brackett is required to complete a health department-approved medical ethics course and record-keeping course and pay a $1,000 fine. The board also placed Brackett’s medical license on probation for six months and required her to hire another doctor to monitor the records of at least five patients for three months, and to take a class with the state Department of Children and Families on mandatory reporting guidelines.
At the board’s June and September meetings, members argued that the proposed punishment was too lenient, twice sending the matter back to a review panel. Last month, despite members of the review panel saying an ethics course would not make a difference, the full board asked that a mandatory ethics course be added to the sanctions.
According to documents, the action against Brackett stemmed from her filing a complaint with the Department of Children and Families (DCF) about the conduct of a patient’s father during his 15-year-old daughter’s office visit. Brackett’s complaint alleged that during the girl’s examination, in January 2009, the teenager was completely naked in front of her father. Brackett told a DCF worked that a 15-year-old girl who could bare her breasts in front of her father was “a little like incestuous, or not healthy, like a sex slave or some perversion,” according to the public health department’s report.
DCF investigated the charges and concluded they were not substantiated. As a mandatory reporter, a doctor is required by state law to report suspected child abuse within 12 hours of its discovery.
The review panel further concluded that Brackett had erroneously reported on the patient’s medical record that she had performed breast and rectal exams. Brackett told the hearing panel that she did not perform these exams because of the father’s presence.
In other action Tuesday:
“They’re doing something that is entering the body” without necessarily taking the person’s medical history and knowing whether the procedure is safe, she said. “We feel it’s important.”
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