Psychiatrist faces complaints from patients, former business partner. Ethics rulings months away

From the Topeka Capital Journal

The state Board of Healing Arts ended a closed-door session Saturday by delaying action for six months on the latest round of ethics complaints against a Johnson County psychiatrist.

Douglas Geenens, trained at the Menninger Clinic in Topeka, opened the hearing by declaring he would withdraw a request that the board terminate a 2004 disciplinary agreement resulting from a finding that he crossed professional boundaries by having a sexual relationship with a one-time patient.

Geenens said he would voluntarily remain under medical observation of another doctor.

"I felt it was reasonable to continue with my psychoanalytically based supervision," he said.

The board met with Geenens in executive session before ordering a formal hearing on a series of pending allegations against him. A former business partner and at least two former patients submitted recent complaints.

Responsibility for the upcoming review would fall to a judge at the state Office of Administrative Hearings, which would be expected to issue a decision by September. If that occurred, the board would place Geenens on its October agenda.

"This would give the board the opportunity to know all the relevant facts," said Mark Stafford, the board's general counsel.

Geenens was among four Kansas-licensed doctors profiled in a series in The Topeka Capital-Journal in March. Each had sparked regulatory challenges for the Board of Healing Arts, which regulates more than 20,000 health professionals in Kansas.

The board has been widely criticized for its slow reaction to allegations of professional misconduct.

In early April, the Kansas House and Senate unanimously approved resolutions calling on the 15-member board to institute personnel changes and other reforms to restore public confidence in the agency. The board's top administrators — Larry Buening, executive director, and Stafford — resigned. Stafford departs June 1 and Buening on July 1.

Debbie Holscher, a Johnson County resident and former patient of Geenens, said she filed a formal complaint last week against the psychiatrist. She said one element of her grievance focused on Geenens' instruction — not heeded — to obtain a divorce and move to the Plaza area of Kansas City, Mo., so that Geenens and Holscher could regularly have breakfast together.

"I think it's very unprofessional," said Holscher, who attended Saturday's board meeting in Topeka. "I think he should lose his license."

Holscher stopped attending counseling sessions with Geenens four years ago, but her complaint mirrors the content of complaints filed by other people who were clients of Geenens.

Andrew Jacobs filed a complaint with the Board of Healing Arts after Geenens began an intimate relationship with Jacobs' wife in 2003. During counseling, Jacobs said, Geenens urged Jacobs' wife to get a divorce. Geenens is now married to the woman.

In the consent order signed by Geenens in 2004, the psychiatrist accepted a one-week suspension of his state license and agreed to supervision of his practice for two years. He was publicly censured and required to attend a course on "maintaining proper boundaries" with patients.

Geenens had requested Saturday's hearing with the board to vacate that consent order.

"We received a letter from Dr. Geenens who asked to withdraw his request," said Betty McBride, the board's president.

Geenens holds a full license to practice medicine in Kansas. In September, he closed his clinical office in Johnson County. Geenens agreed in October to "retire" his medical license in Missouri while regulators in that state looked into allegations of his out-of-bounds associations with women.

He continues to see patients privately and remains on the payroll at Pfizer, the world's largest research-based biomedical and pharmaceutical company.

"We can confirm that Dr. Geenens is an employee of Pfizer," said Chris Loder, a company spokesman in New York City. "However, as a matter of company policy, we do not comment on personnel matters."

Witnesses bash alleged inaction of Kansas board that regulates doctors

A storm is brewing in Kansas over the passive corruption in the State Medical Board. Obviously, somebody is not doing their job, and the people of Kansas are suffering for it. We highlight a psychiatric case on misconduct in the report, there are others mentioned at the link. As seen in this report.

Too slow to act when doctors misbehave, and far too lenient when it does impose discipline.

Those were complaints raised repeatedly in testimony last week before state lawmakers about the Kansas board that regulates doctors.

The Kansas State Board of Healing Arts has come under intense scrutiny since it came to light that the board did not suspend the license of Stephen Schneider, a Haysville doctor accused of running a “pill mill,” until more than a month after federal criminal charges had been filed against him.

Witnesses testifying before the state Senate’s Health Strategies Committee last week said the board also had reacted sluggishly to other alleged problems.

On Tuesday, board officials will present their side to lawmakers, said committee chairwoman Sen. Susan Wagle, a Wichita Republican.

Andrew Jacobs, a psychologist from Leawood, told the committee Wednesday that he had filed a complaint with the board in 2003 against Overland Park psychiatrist Douglas Geenens.

Jacobs said Geenens had a sexual relationship with his wife, who was Geenens’ patient at the time.

In 2004, the board publicly censured Geenens, suspended his medical license for a week and ordered him to submit to supervision of his practice for at least two years by another doctor.

Jacobs told lawmakers the punishment was inadequate, and that since then, he has alerted the board to other claims against Geenens — only to see nothing happen.

“They don’t share with you what is going on. … Once you file a case, you are left out in the cold,” Jacobs said.

Geenens’ former partner, Rory Murphy, told the committee that the board’s decision shocked him because it was so slight compared to the offense.

“I really couldn’t comprehend the decision of the board,” said Murphy, an Overland Park psychiatrist.

Jacobs and Murphy said it was unethical for a therapist to have a sexual relationship with a current or former patient because patients could be easily exploited. Jacobs said he would like to see a law that would make it illegal for doctors to have sex with their patients.

Sen. Phil Journey, a Haysville Republican, said he believes such a law would be a good idea, pointing out that it is illegal for teachers to have sex with students. Extending the law to medical professionals makes sense, he said.

The telephone was disconnected at Geenens’ most recent known office address, and The Star was unable to contact him for comment.

[...]

Psychologist in BTK case settles suit over tape

Another psychologist refuses to admit he did anything wrong as he settles a lawsuit.

As background information, here's a snippet from The Witchita Eagle, as reported on April 15th 2005:

As a two-hour special about BTK aired Friday on national television, dozens of Wichita criminal justice officials were questioning the ethics of a psychologist whose interview with the confessed killer turned out to be the basis for the show. [..] The interview was conducted by Massachusetts psychologist Robert Mendoza immediately after Rader pleaded guilty to 10 counts of first-degree murder. “Quite frankly, we trusted this guy,” Rader’s lawyer, Steve Osburn said Friday. “This is very surprising, very disappointing.”

So the psych has settled a lawsuit and is paying back some money. As reported here:

The state's lawsuit against a psychologist hired to evaluate the BTK serial killer at times took on the absurdities of reality television before it finally ended this week with money for the families of 10 people Dennis Rader killed.

Massachusetts psychologist Robert Mendoza, who faced claims that he broke contracts and breached professional ethics, settled the case for $30,000 and did not admit wrongdoing.

Mendoza received more than $50,000 from Rader's court-appointed public defenders to interview the killer in a holding cell at the Sedgwick County Courthouse within minutes of the guilty plea detailing his grisly murders.

The psychologist said in a court deposition that he hired former reality television star Omarosa Manigault Stallworth -- who gained fleeting fame on the first season of "The Apprentice" with Donald Trump -- to produce a "high-quality" video of Rader to "humanize" him at sentencing.

Instead, the tape ended up on the television show "Dateline NBC."
Attorney General Paul Morrison said Thursday the big win for the state came through a legal agreement preventing Mendoza or his associates from personally benefiting from their role in the Rader case. They may not use the case to publish academic or professional papers or use it in any other form of media, and they've agreed to return all materials they have that are related to Rader's case to the state of Kansas.

"I'm just glad it's behind me," Mendoza said in a telephone interview from his office in suburban Boston.

Mendoza reached a settlement after the state tried to add a negligence claim against him.

During his deposition, Mendoza claimed that he never had possession of the taped interview and that the video crew absconded with it. Mendoza also said he did not know the crew's identity. But he said Omarosa, who goes professionally by her first name, last had the tape before it ended up on national television.

Omarosa now makes personal appearances and runs a service advising beauty pageant contestants, according to her Web site. But back in the summer of 2005, Mendoza said, Omarosa hired the crew to tape the psychologist's interview with Rader in Wichita.

Mendoza said in the deposition that Rader was prone to violent emotional outbursts in jail. The video was meant to show him in a calmer light.

Omarosa, Mendoza said, assured him tape was "locked up."

"I understand it is confidential, and I will get it to you shortly," Mendoza remembered Omarosa saying in about 10 phone calls.

Two weeks before Rader's sentencing, the video turned up on "Dateline."

Omarosa was not deposed as a witness.

Pat Scalia, director of the State Board of Indigents' Defense Services, said Thursday the budget that pays for the defense of poor people has made up for the money it paid Mendoza. Scalia said she received from the Legislature all the funds she requested this year.

"It was agreed from the outset of this lawsuit that any money collected would go to the crime victims," Scalia said. "We did not want this office to be at cross purposes with the families of crime victims."

During the legislative wrap-up session, Morrison asked state lawmakers to add a proviso to the budget allowing the state to give the settlement money to the victims' families.

"It will not ease their pain, but will provide them with some financial assistance," Morrison said in a statement released by his office.

Rader, who called himself BTK for the way he would "bind, torture and kill," is serving 10 life sentences in the El Dorado Correctional Facility.

See a report on the TV special here