The report card for each state contains the scores it received when we evaluated it for how well it protects patients against sexually abusive doctors. The overall rating is the average of the score the state received in each category. In states with two medical boards, one for osteopathic physicians and the other for medical doctors, the overall rating is based on an average of each board’s scores.
Click on the boxes below to read how Iowa did on each category — and how we calculated the score for the categories.
State rating (out of 100)
After a plea deal that spared him from prosecution on 94 charges, Gierlus was sentenced to eight years in federal prison for a drugs-for-sex scheme. Prosecutors had asked for a harsher sentence because of what they called a long pattern of predatory behavior.
Gierlus used vibrators and sex tools during appointments and targeted women with troubled pasts, including women who had suffered sexual abuse as children, the judge said. At least three of the dozen identified victims said the doctor first injected them with a "date rape" drug in his office during an exam.
Officials said there may have been many more victims, and they noted that because many of the women were on public assistance, taxpayers financed his acts.
Gierlus surrendered his license in 2013.
The Journal-Constitution has been unable to reach Gierlus for comment.
The board investigates anonymous complaints, which it says routinely arrive by e-mail, FAX, phonecalls and postal mail. The board also says that its investigative file is shared with a physician only when the board files charges.
“Revocation is the nuclear option…There is this notion of a second chance on some things.”
— Mark Bowden, executive director of the Iowa Board of Medicine
The AJC review found that regulators rarely issue public orders against doctors who fail to report sex abuse by another physician. However, Iowa sanctioned two doctors who the board said failed to notify it about abuse by another doctor. Also, Iowa's confidential program for impaired physicians states that impairment does not include sexual compulsivity, sexual addiction or other sexual disorders.
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