“Playing Doctor”

So this guy is Dr. Shawn DeRemer, married to Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer. He is an anesthesiologist. And he’s been accused of sexually assaulting two members of the Labor Department. On the premises.

He is an anesthesiologist. Who lives in Portland, Oregon. Who frequently visits his wife in her office on Constitution Avenue in DC.

Again, he’s an anesthesiologist.

Who assaults women in public. What does he do in private?

There’s so much history of sexual assault in medicine. Not just molestation or rape – fertility doctors supplying their own sperm instead of that of the husband or donor. An anesthesiologist who already has a record of assault being let loose in the medical field, when no woman would ever recall being assaulted after he put them under…it’s fucking sinister. We know there are freelancers out there.

Doctors don’t even need a woman to be unconscious to assault her. When I was in my 20s, early in my marriage, I was on contraceptive pills. Needed a checkup every six months. I went to a clinic – why not? Once admitted to the examining room, I waited, as one does. I was wearing a dress, and was not asked to put on a gown, just to remove my underwear. When the doctor came in, he was followed by a student – he did not ask my permission. He ordered me to put my feet into the stirrups and slide down on the examination table.

Then he suddenly stuck his fingers inside me – ungloved. And his student did too. At which point I sat up and said, “What the fuck are you doing?”

He made some excuse about wanting to “check for blood.” He was half-laughing, half-offering a lame explanation. I pulled my skirt down and said, “I’m done here.” He tried to make me stay, but I wasn’t having it.

I never got a proper examination, a PAP smear, nothing. A prescription was waiting for me at the front desk. The assault had happened. And nothing I could do about it. I could not have prevented it, unless I attacked him before the “exam” even started.

And this was an awake woman. Young, yes. Vulnerable, yes. What gets done to unconscious women – even in supposedly-regulated hospital settings – is terrifying to contemplate.

An anesthesiologist accused of sexual assault of awake women? What is he doing to those under his care?