Dr. Feelbad

Unfortunately for some of Dr. Feldman’s patients, he gave them more attention than they could handle.

“On or about Dec. 22, 1993, Patient B was seen by Respondent (Dr. Feldman) for a follow up visit for herself and her infant daughter regarding cold-like symptoms….While conducting an examination (Dr. Feldman) placed his stethoscope under the Patient’s sweater and placed his other hand under her bra and began rubbing her breast and pinching her nipple. Patient B immediately pulled (Dr. Feldman’s) hand out. (Dr. Feldman) then grabbed Patient B’s hand and placed it on his groin…. (Dr. Feldman) ran his hand under Patient B’s panties and moved his finger around her clitoris. Patient B’s baby who was present during the entire examination started to get up. Patient B got up and dressed…. He asked if she could come back around 1 p.m. when the Nurse was at lunch. Patient refused.”

So reads just one of many complaints against Dr. Richard Feldman lodged with the Tennessee Board of Medical Examiners. These were quoted at length in the 1998 board decision against him. At the time that some of the complaints were filed, Feldman was still a general practitioner and had not yet turned his practice into the weight loss juggernaut that it is today. This is not to say that he wasn’t busy. Just a week after the above incident, Feldman did it again. On Dec. 28, 1993, a 25-year-old woman whom medical board documents refer to as Patient A came to see Feldman. She had a cold.

Dr. Feldman began “examining Patient A with a stethoscope.” During the examination, he “placed his hand in Patient A’s bra and fondled her breast. As he fondled her breast, (Dr. Feldman) said, ‘What do we have here?’ ”

Patient A swatted Dr. Feldman’s hand away. He then began to examine her abdomen but quickly moved south, placing “his hand inside her panties.” Feldman then began to “rub the Patient’s pubic area” saying, “A natural blonde, I see.”

Feldman then asked his patient to remove her pants so that he could give her an injection. “Prior to administering the injection, (Dr. Feldman) placed his finger in her anus but Patient A pulled away.”

Although Dr. Feldman did not respond to repeated attempts to contact him at his office, his attorney Larry Roberts says that the women who made these allegations are not to be believed.

Roberts says that these women were “people of very questionable character. I wouldn’t believe them if they swore on a stack of Bibles.” He added that after the hearing before the medical board one of the women admitted to lying about “engaging in prostitution.”

But the medical board’s findings sided with the accusers. And as terrible as these two incidents were, the board accused Feldman of even worse. According to the medical board’s disciplinary documents, Dr. Feldman had sex with a 17-year-old patient.

The girl was a regular patient of Feldman’s. She told the doctor that she had had sex for the first time and wanted “medical information concerning sex.” When she showed up for her visit, Feldman was outside the office waiting for her. He said that the office was closed for lunch and invited her to come with him to eat.

Instead of taking her to lunch, he directed the 17-year-old to his house, where he took her inside and had sex with her. During future visits, he “continued to exhibit sexual behavior toward her.”

Roberts, Dr Feldman’s attorney, denies that the girl was a minor. “She was 18,” he says. “She testified that she had consensual sex with him and that he showed her how to use a bidet, which he had at his home. Then she drove him to his office.”

Roberts also says that Feldman continued to treat her for many months after that. Even assuming the lawyer’s version of events, the Hippocratic oath’s guidelines for the ethical practice of medicine expressly says that physicians must avoid sexual relations or other inappropriate entanglements with patients and their families.

According to the medical board documents, sex wasn’t the only thing on Dr. Feldman’s mind; he also demonstrated a sick sense of humor.

He told a patient who came to him about her back pain that “there was nothing more he could do for her and that she could put a gun in her mouth and pull the trigger.”

Another time, he was performing a pelvic exam on a woman who was on an examination table with her feet spread apart in stirrups. As Feldman was sitting on a stool between her legs, he leaned in and said “Hello” as if waiting for an echo. When the patient objected to this remark, Feldman said “that he was just joking.”