Evan S. Levine, MD FACC, is the Editor of the Journal of Medicine, Director of the Cardiovascular Center at Saint Joseph’s Hospital and a Clinical Assistant Professor of Medicine at Montefiore Medical Center – Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He is also the author of the book “What Your Doctor Won’t (or Can’t) Tell You”.
The allegations herein are not stories removed from the Mad Men series because they were too rancid or from workers in the 1960s, before women’s rights, or human resources existed. Sadly this type of misogynistic and even discriminatory behavior is taking place throughout a very specific business and there is little being done to prevent it. It is a venue where the victims have little say; where the perpetrators or very heinous acts they have committed have little worry of any retribution.
A woman is fondled at a dinner table while the person’s wife, who is assaulting her, sits just a few feet away; another is groped in a man’s office. A married man tells another woman that he has to masturbate several times a day and hopes she can help him, and finally a person is thrown out of an office because he is accused of being a Jew. Below are the stories of real people, people who work in the medical sales industry. I thought it was time to tell their stories.
A single woman, working in pharmaceutical sales, calls on a physician to promote a prescription medication for the treatment of heart disease. The physician escorts her into his consultation office and closes the door. She reports to me that as she entered the office she had immediately noticed a photo of the doctor’s wife and children that sits on his desk. She then tells me in detail that he asked her if he could massage her feet, while discussing the product she is marketing. He touches her without gaining her permission. He tells her he is very attracted to her and asks if instead of paying him to give a talk to other doctors she might just take him to dinner. I’ll call him Dr. White.
Dr. White prescribed a lot of her product, and those sales helped her sales figures and corporate revenue stream as was regularly reviewed by her manager, but the idea of this middle-aged man, a man who proudly displayed photos of his family for his patients and staff to see, would be interested in a tryst with her turned her stomach. And yet she knew not to upset him since it might cause him to stop prescribing her product and result in some form of reprimand from her company.
She had no one to complain to, or no one that could help her if she did, since the doctor worked for himself, not for a large hospital, and there was no human resources department to investigate her complaint. As far as her company, she did discuss the problem with a manager, a superior, who told her that they would send a man to this doctor’s office from now on. It seems that this physician could get away with sexual harassment and likely continued to do so with other woman marketing medical products or pharmaceuticals.
Mr. X had sold Dr. Green medical devices. The physician practices in New York, in an neighborhood with the usual population mix of patients that included a number of elderly Jews During a recent visit Mr. X noticed Dr. Green upset about something. Dr. Green asked Mr. X to come into his office as he often had; sometimes in the past Mr. X, the product representative provided Halal food for the doctor and his staff. Instead of the usual talk about the medical product sold by Mr. X , the rep tells of the following confrontation:
Dr. Green: What kind of name is Mr. X?
Mr. X.: I ‘m not sure what you mean
Dr. Green: Where are you from?
Mr. X.: Brooklyn!
Dr. Green: No, I mean where were your ancestors from?
Mr. X.: I guess Eastern Europe
Dr. Green: So that means you’re a Jew?
Mr.X.: Yes, I am.
Dr. Green: Then get the hell out of my office.
And again, where was he to turn? The physician worked in a private practice. Although it bothered Mr. X that the Dr. Green had elderly Jewish patients sitting in his waiting room at times, Mr. X. wondered, if Dr. Green threw him out of his office because he was “ a Jew”, if Dr. Green might harm any of the elderly Jewish patients that received medical attention from Dr. Green might be harmed mentally and/or medically by similar conduct. Not knowing what to do and seemingly unable to report the physician he came to me. I too was afraid to name the physician, worried what possible harm might come of divulging Mr. X.’s experience..
A woman pharmaceutical representative scheduled an appointment to see Dr. Black, a cardiologist with a reputation for being difficult and causing trouble to pharmaceutical reps. Nevertheless a potentially important client and prescriber of the medication she represented, the pharmaceutical rep thought she was tough enough to handle the physician, a professional, who would meet with her during his office hours. She had heard about his pathologic and misogynistic behavior. it appeared that his behavior was no secret to the reps, but also the women that worked for him.
Shortly after being ushered into Dr. Black’s consultation room, she found herself alone with Dr. Wine, who closed the door to the consultation room. Dr. Wine began a dialogue appropriate for a copy of Penthouse Forum or a session at the Bellevue psychiatric ward than at a physician’s office. According to this professional woman, who I interviewed less than a week ago, the doctor told her that he had trouble with sexual thoughts and needed to masturbate several times a day, sometimes between seeing patients. He had wondered if she might be interested in helping him cope with his problem and have sex with him.
She turned his request down and left the office, reporting what occurred to her supervisor. And as was often usual, the solution was not to report the physician but to have a man make future visits to the doctor’s office. Sadly, this doctor name would repeatedly come up when I questioned other women over the veracity of this story. One woman, who also demanded to remain anonymous, told me that he forced himself on her and pushed into her groin with his groin. She too never reported it and just left.
It was for her, perhaps the final insult; the final awkward moment she would tolerate and left the profession of working for a medical device company. She sat next to an elderly physician, seemingly a well-respected cardiologist in private practice, during one of those free dinners, many companies manage to have their clients attend. Not unusual, but definitely not compliant to guidelines. The physician’s office manager, who was his wife, sat at the other end of the table. During the dinner she felt the doctor’s hand on her thigh and pushed him aside. Not much later, I was told, she left the profession.
All the people I spoke to had similar stories. Someone whose job it is to heal people, not to hurt anyone, abused them all. And they all had no place to go, other than to a supervisor who suggested they just substitute another worker, perhaps a man for a woman, or a gentile for a Jew, as a solution. There are no human resource departments to turn to when you call on a private physician, and reporting someone, whether for sexual harassment or a some type of hate, creates a lot of jeopardy for the accuser. The company they work for may not wish to lose their business or the business of the doctor’s colleagues. The accuser may be ostracized by other doctors and lose sales; even if they report this physician, a person often considered in an elite profession, to whom can they report their allegations? What proof does the law require of them? Is the law protecting those whose stories will not be heard? Why not?
Evan S. Levine, MD FACC, is the Editor of the Journal of Medicine, Director of the Cardiovascular Center at Saint Joseph’s Hospital and a Clinical Assistant Professor of Medicine at Montefiore Medical Center – Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He is also the author of the book “What Your Doctor Won’t (or Can’t) Tell You”. He lives in Connecticut with his wife and children.
