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 Hawaii did on each category — and how we calculated the score for the categories.
State rating (out of 100)
Dr. Robert McCormick Browne
Over decades, Browne drugged and molested dozens of students at a school where he worked as its designated psychiatrist. Authorities said he targeted male students for abuse that went on from about 1958 to 1985.
He committed suicide in 1991 after a student threatened to expose him.
A lawsuit against the school was filed in 2014, and a second one was filed this year. The plaintiffs allege that high-level administrators at the school were told of Browne’s sexual abuse of students and failed to act, then undertook a cover-up over many years to conceal his abuse.
The online complaint form, in bold type, advises the public to attempt to resolve the complaint with the physician first. The form asks if the person filing the complaint has contacted the doctor to try to resolve it and whether the person would be willing to testify. However, the state agency that handles complaints says it will accept anonymous ones.
“Then, unfortunately, I directed the conversation toward the advantages and disadvantages of different ways to have intercourse, stating for example that some women prefer some way better than another, or that some difficulties can be overcome if the man acts very gentle, etc. etc. This was certainly very inappropriate.”
— A doctor to the state board. He was accused of lewd remarks with a patient and touching her breast. The state rejected an examiner’s recommendation that his license be suspended and decided on a conditional license. Among the restrictions: He had to attend Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous.
The state only keeps disciplinary information on its website for five years, one of the most limited periods in the nation.
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