Proponents of Senate Bill 109 see this as measure to hold medical professionals accountable and prevent the kinds of abuses committed by Richard Strauss, a deceased Ohio State University physician accused of being a sexual predator during his two decades on campus.
“The Richard Strauss matter was an unthinkable tragedy that greatly affected citizens of Ohio, who we have a duty to protect,” said State Sen. Bob Hackett, R-London, in his sponsor testimony for the bill, which passed the Ohio Senate on April 24.
This will be one of the last of Hackett’s bills made into law during his time in the Ohio Senate as he is leaving due to reaching the limit of his term.
“The future of Ohio looks really bright,” Hackett said during the Ohio Senate’s farewell to him during its last session of the year. Hackett spoke in reference to other lawmakers in the Ohio Senate and House.
“We really have good people,” Hackett said.
Over the course of his university tenure from 1978 to 1998, Strauss committed 1,430 instances of fondling and 47 rapes during his tenure, according to a 2019 campus safety report from OSU. He died by suicide in 2005.
He had been reported to the state as early as 1996, but was “alarmingly” able to maintain his Ohio medical license for another two years, DeWine said Friday.
Strauss’ case set off a variety of Ohio medical board reforms from the governor’s office, but DeWine said Friday there was still a clear need for legislative action to rectify regulatory issues that stymied the state’s ability to act quickly on Strauss in the late 1990s.
“That legislative action I’m signing today,” DeWine said.
The bill updates Ohio’s criminal code to hold doctors to the same standards as other professions. It also gives the State Medical Board of Ohio more tools to hold medical practitioners accountable for sexual misconduct.
S.B. 109 also makes it easier to charge licensed medical professionals with sexual battery.
Prior to this, the State Medical Board of Ohio had added its own improvements over the past five years to more effectively address sexual misconduct complaints.
“We are the only medical board in the country with a team dedicated to sexual misconduct complaints,” said Stephanie Loucka executive director of the State Medical Board.
The board has specially trained investigators, a victim coordinator and an attorney with expertise in these types of cases, Loucka said.
The bill also increases accountability for those who are aware of these crimes but fail to report them. Under S.B. 109, any person who knows that a licensed medical professional has committed a sexual offense will face a fourth-degree misdemeanor for failing to report that crime within 30 days of obtaining that knowledge.
The bill prohibits doctor-patient confidentiality being used as means to exclude evidence against the medical professional in court proceedings.
And, DeWine said, the Medical Board of Ohio “will now be able to require a doctor to notify their patients in writing if they are on probation for sexual misconduct or patient harm,” thanks to S.B. 109.
“The State Medical Board’s highest priority is to protect patients. Our job is not to protect doctors,” said Dr. Jonathan Feibel, president of the State Medical Board. “As a physician, I know the level of trust patients place in their doctor when they need medical attention.”
Medical providers who break a patient’s trust must be held accountable, he said.
“That’s exactly what this bill will do – solving shortcomings in the law that will help us bring future cases to enforcement,” Feibel said.
