Former U.C.L.A. Gynecologist Charged With Sexual Battery

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/12/us/ucla-james-heaps-sexual-misconduct.html

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A gynecological oncologist who worked at a University of California, Los Angeles, student health center has been charged with two counts of sexual battery, according to his lawyer.

The doctor, James Heaps, was employed at the clinic from about 1983 to 2010 and was hired by U.C.L.A. Health in 2014, the school said in a statement on Monday. The university said it was made aware of the accusations of sexual misconduct last year and began an investigation. Dr. Heaps has pleaded not guilty to both charges, his lawyer, Tracy Green, said.

The investigation was prompted by sexual misconduct accusations from two patients who received care at a U.C.L.A. Health office in 2017 and 2018, and Ms. Green said the charges are in relation to those accusations. The university also found an anonymous Yelp review from 2015 that said Dr. Heaps had sexually abused the person who posted the comment while the person was a U.C.L.A. student, according to Rhonda Curry, a spokeswoman for the school. A fourth allegation was discovered in February 2019, Ms. Curry said.

“Sexual abuse in any form is unacceptable and represents an inexcusable breach of the physician-patient relationship,” U.C.L.A. said in the statement. “We are deeply sorry that a former U.C.L.A. physician violated our policies and standards, our trust and the trust of his patients.”

The university immediately notified law enforcement and the Medical Board of California, according to Ms. Curry.

Ms. Curry clarified that of the four accusations, only one — the Yelp review — came from a former student.

“The student, that person on Yelp, we don’t know the location of that incident,” Ms. Curry said. “Primarily, we just want to make sure people know.”

The university said Dr. Heaps retired in June 2018, after he had been informed he was being terminated because of the first two misconduct allegations, but Ms. Green said that he did not “flee into retirement.”

“As the medical staff present during the examinations can verify, there was no improper conduct,” Ms. Green said. “These are completely baseless and false allegations made many months later. There is no truth to the claims that these medical exams were done for anything other than a professional medical purpose.”

Ms. Green said Dr. Heaps was not available for comment.

One of the first two misconduct complaints is from a woman who saw Dr. Heaps for an examination in February 2018 for severe pelvic pain and suspicion of ovarian cancer, Ms. Green said.

The patient’s original complaint was that she had never had a physician use two hands during a pelvic exam, Ms. Green said. (During a pelvic exam, which can help detect ovarian cancer, a doctor places fingers of one hand inside the vagina and presses on the abdomen with the other hand.)

Ms. Green said there was “no indication” in a recorded interview of the patient conducted by medical board investigators that there had been “any act or comment of a sexual nature other than the patient not having had the experience of a pelvic exam where her ovaries or cervix were examined.”

She said that during the examination of the person who filed the second complaint, another clinic staff member had been present.

Ms. Green said that Mr. Heaps had not been not interviewed by U.C.L.A. or the California medical board before he was charged, a decision she called “careless.”

In March, U.C.L.A. started an independent review of its response to sexual misconduct in its clinics. U.C.L.A. said it would “identify and implement” the necessary changes based on the findings of the review.