Each state has its own set of statutes and regulations on licensing doctors, accommodating patients who wish to file complaints, and releasing information about physicians who have been subject to discipline and legal action. On this page, we’re sharing the key findings regarding District of Columbia, which we will continue to update as the series progresses.
Key fact: As of 2011, every new applicant for a license must obtain state and FBI criminal background checks.
“He used his position to prey upon the most vulnerable population – inmates – and sexually abuse these men.”
—Assistant U.S. Attorney Peter V. Taylor, commenting on the sentencing of Dr. Lewis Jackson. The physician sexually abused a prisoner at the D.C. Jail in 2008 and several prisoners at a federal penitentiary in Atlanta in 2011. His D.C. license was revoked and he surrendered his Georgia license.
In 2013, the D.C. medical board granted a license to King. The neurologist had surrendered his license to practice in South Dakota in 2006 after admitting to an improper relationship with a patient. The following year he pleaded no contest to a single count of sexual penetration by a psychotherapist.
Other physicians and former patients wrote letters of support for the doctor. The judge suspended imposition of the sentence, allowing King to be granted a clean record after completing 10 years on probation.
At the sentencing hearing in South Dakota, Judge Glen W. Eng said, “I understand that the decision that the court makes today impacts you. But I think it also impacts society. Society is saying that we cannot have people who are vulnerable, who because of their psychological situation, be placed in a position where they place trust on a person professionally and are then taken advantage of.”
King's original license to practice medicine in D.C. was granted in 1998 and expired at the end of 2002.
Noting the South Dakota case in King's 2013 reinstatement order, the D.C. board set conditions that included taking additional training on physician-patient boundaries and submitting to monitoring by a board-approved supervisory physician for at least a year.
The board terminated that order in 2015, ruling its terms and conditions had been satisfied. King's D.C. license is listed as active.
Reached by phone, King declined to comment.
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