From The New York Times:Dr. Melvin D. Levine, (pictured) the North Carolina pediatrician who faces a lawsuit accusing him of molesting young boys during physical examinations, has signed a consent order agreeing that he will never again practice medicine in North Carolina or anywhere else.
In the consent order, approved by the state medical board on Friday, the board said it had been prepared to present testimony that the genital examinations Dr. Levine
conducted on five unnamed patients were done outside the presence of a parent or
chaperon, were not medically indicated and were either not documented in the medical record or not documented according to prevailing standards.
Until the accusations of sexual molesting surfaced last year, Dr. Levine was a prominent voice in the field of learning disabilities. His books and lectures were acclaimed by teachers and parents. Dr. Levine, 69, has denied any wrongdoing. He voluntarily suspended his license last April and faces no criminal charges. Although the consent order did not address his guilt or innocence, Thomas Mansfield, the medical board’s legal director, said the order was unusually broad.
“The result of this consent order is that this physician will never examine another patient anywhere in the world,” Mr. Mansfield said. “Rarely do you see one that says never again, in any jurisdiction.”
The order, whose language was negotiated with Dr. Levine’s lawyer, said Dr. Levine had been prepared to present testimony that his examinations were medically indicated and consistent with standard medical practice.
The order also said the board had received many letters in support of Dr. Levine from doctors, educators, former patients and their parents, saying he had been instrumental both in helping students who struggle in school and in “helping teachers and clinicians understand the differences in learning and better manage students whose problems were misunderstood and poorly managed in the past.”
Dr. Levine’s lawyer, Alan Schneider, said, “He continues to adamantly deny the allegations.”The doctor agreed to the consent order, Mr. Schneider said, because the medical board proceeding “has been and would continue to be a major distraction from Dr. Levine’s primary mission to help individuals with serious learning difficulties and developmental problems.”
Dr. Levine has not been a practicing pediatrician for some time, Mr. Schneider said, and the order will allow him to continue his writing and lecturing.
The five unnamed patients in the medical-board proceeding are all North Carolina children, Mr. Schneider said, and not the same ones in the pending lawsuit.
The author of “A Mind at a Time” and other books on learning disabilities, Dr. Levine was chief of ambulatory pediatrics at Children’s Hospital Boston, a teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School, before moving to the University of North Carolina in 1985. He is a Rhodes scholar and attended Harvard Medical School.
There have been complaints against Dr. Levine dating back more than two decades.
In 1985, after he left Boston, court records show that a letter of complaint was sent to the president of Children’s Hospital Boston. The complaint turned into a civil lawsuit in 1988 in Federal District Court in Massachusetts.
There was also a formal complaint to the Massachusetts medical board in 1993. And a longtime colleague, Dr. William Coleman, said Dr. Levine told him in 2002 that another former patient was claiming sexual abuse.
None of the cases were proved in court.
The lawsuit was dismissed in 1991 for lack of evidence. The Massachusetts medical board did not find enough evidence to act on the 1993 complaint. The patient who made the complaint to Dr. Levine in 2002 is now a plaintiff in a lawsuit filed by Carmen Durso, a Boston lawyer.
