Two prominent doctors stepped down on Tuesday from their posts at Columbia University and NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital following the release of a report that found that the culture there discouraged reporting allegations of abuse against a former physician who sexually assaulted hundreds of patients.
The external investigation, which was commissioned in 2023 by both Columbia and NewYork-Presbyterian, found that the physician, Robert Hadden, crafted a positive image for himself and became one of the top obstetrician-gynecologists at Columbia-affiliated hospitals. He used that image to facilitate his abuse, the investigation found. But reports of his misconduct went nowhere when mentioned to staff members, some of whom were afraid of challenging the institution’s hierarchical culture.
Mr. Hadden, who has not worked as a doctor since 2012, pleaded guilty to the abuse in 2016 in state court, which allowed him to avoid time behind bars, infuriating scores of women who said he had preyed on them. He lost his medical license in the deal. He was later convicted in a federal case and sentenced to 20 years in prison.
“The institutions failed to respond effectively to the reports of misconduct that they did receive,” according to the report conducted by Joan Loughnane, a partner at Sidley Austin LLP.
“Despite the obstacles to reporting, several reports about Hadden’s abuse did reach physician leaders over the years,” the report found. “Yet decision-makers resolved the complaints ad hoc, in an environment in which deference to physicians like Hadden was the cultural norm, and without systems of records that would effectively identify patterns of physician misconduct.”
In a statement released on Tuesday, Claire Shipman, the acting president of Columbia University, and Dr. Katrina Armstrong, the chief executive of Columbia’s medical center, said that the university was committed to ensuring that nothing like Mr. Hadden’s decades-long abuse of hospital patients can happen again.
“We are clear about the institutional failures that allowed Hadden to exploit the system, abuse patients, and avoid detection for as long as he did,” they said in the statement.
Dr. Mary D’Alton will step down from her leadership positions as chair of the department of obstetrics and gynecology at Columbia University Irving Medical Center and obstetrician and gynecologist-in-chief at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia, according to an announcement from the university. In those roles, she was Mr. Hadden’s supervisor from 2004 until he stopped seeing patients in 2012.
Dr. D’Alton vouched for Mr. Hadden’s character and skills to those in leadership positions after he was detained by police in 2012 for allegedly licking a woman’s vagina during a medical exam. The university allowed him to return to practicing medicine for five weeks before he voluntarily went out on leave, the report found.
Dr. D’Alton will maintain her clinical practice and continue to do research at Columbia.
“I cannot adequately express the sorrow I feel for the suffering Robert Hadden inflicted on so many women,” she said in a statement. “That these acts were committed by a doctor in our department, including while I was chair, pains me deeply and always will.”
Dr. D’Alton said that she had implemented changes within the department to strengthen patient safety and protections following Mr. Hadden’s abuses.
Dr. Lee Goldman, a cardiologist who was the dean of the medical school and chief executive of the medical center between 2006 and 2020, is retiring, Columbia announced. Though he held a title as a professor, the university said that he was no longer seeing patients or teaching.
The report found that Dr. Goldman signed off on the 2012 decision that allowed Mr. Hadden to continue seeing patients, with a chaperone present, after he was detained by the Police Department. Several women later alleged that they were abused during that period.
Dr. Goldman told investigators that he knew at the time that there had been an allegation of inappropriate behavior or touching, but that he didn’t know the details.
He and other top Columbia administrators — including Lee Bollinger, who was the university’s president at the time — also told investigators that they did not move to suspend Mr. Hadden in 2012 because they put “great weight on Dr. D’Alton’s assurances that she had known Hadden for a long period of time, that there had been no prior complaints against him, that he was of high character, and that it was inconceivable that he had done what the patient had alleged,” the report said.
Dr. Goldman said in a statement that while he was dean, he and others worked to “implement improved policies, procedures, and quality standards.” He praised the school for continuing that effort even “while there is clearly work left to do.”
“My heart breaks for the victims of Robert Hadden,” he added.
The investigators interviewed more than 120 people, including survivors and current and former employees of Columbia and NewYork-Presbyterian, and reviewed more than 120,000 documents. But because the scope of the investigation covered only the years that Mr. Hadden was seeing patients, a group of survivors said on Tuesday that it left out an accounting of how Columbia sought to minimize the scandal after 2012.
“The report does not investigate the role of Columbia’s senior leadership and board of trustees and the decisions they made behind closed doors as the scandal unfolded,” a statement from survivor advocates, including Marissa Hoechstetter and Evelyn Yang, said.
“Who approved the intimidation tactics used against us for years while we demanded acknowledgment and accountability?” they wrote. “Who approved the expenses of one law firm after another hired to try to silence us?”
Assemblywoman Grace Lee, who has for years called on the university to address its handling of Mr. Hadden’s case and the fallout, said on Tuesday that the report was “wholly inadequate.”
She said the report mostly rehashed information that had been publicly known and that the scope of the investigation was too narrowly focused and did not address the “cover up” after Mr. Hadden was arrested.
“It reads more like a book report, or review, than an investigation,” Ms. Lee said.
Hurubie Meko is a Times reporter covering criminal justice in New York, with a focus on the Manhattan district attorney’s office and state courts.
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