Former Brigham doc dealing with one other class motion lawsuit over alleged sexual abuse

Dr. Derrick Todd is dealing with a brand new class motion lawsuit filed by sufferers who allege that the previous Brigham and Girls’s Hospital doctor “sexually assaulted sufferers beneath the auspices of offering medical care.”

As in three earlier lawsuits, the brand new criticism alleges that Todd “carried out inappropriate pelvic examinations, breast examinations, and rectal examinations on sufferers … for his personal sexual gratification.”

These “horrifying, traumatizing, and deplorable acts” date again to at the very least 2011, in keeping with the lawsuit filed in Suffolk Superior Courtroom Friday. In line with the criticism, the alleged abuse continued as much as July 2023, when Todd left Brigham and Girls’s.

Brigham and Girls’s beforehand mentioned that the rheumatologist opted to resign after the hospital investigated him and determined to terminate his employment. Todd left one other apply, Charles River Medical Associates, across the identical time and signed an settlement final month to cease practising drugs. Nonetheless, the voluntary settlement doesn’t admit to or acknowledge any wrongdoing on his half.

A number of of Todd’s former sufferers have since come ahead with allegations of sexual abuse, and Friday’s criticism is the fourth lawsuit filed in opposition to Todd in latest weeks. The same class motion lawsuit filed by the agency Lubin & Meyer is now as much as 110 plaintiffs. 

The newest lawsuit alleges that Todd “breached his obligation of care when he carried out inappropriate bodily examinations, practiced gynecological drugs in an unauthorized method, and sexually assaulted sufferers beneath the auspices of offering medical care.” 

The criticism additionally names the establishments the place Todd practiced drugs, claiming that they “had an obligation to rent, prepare, supervise, handle, oversee, and retain competent medical suppliers who avoided assault and inappropriate examinations of sufferers.”

The lead plaintiff within the new class motion is “Jane Doe,” a Sherborn lady who alleges that Todd sexually abused her for greater than a decade, in keeping with Keches Legislation Group, the agency behind the lawsuit. 

In a information launch, Keches Legislation mentioned it hopes to gather financial compensation for Todd’s alleged victims and in addition goals to carry the medical establishments accountable. 

“Medical establishments have a accountability to guard their sufferers from hurt, but Todd was allegedly capable of proceed abusing his sufferers for almost 15 years whereas working for among the most outstanding medical establishments in New England,” the agency defined.

Todd’s legal professional, Ingrid Martin, didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark Tuesday. Nonetheless, she advised The Boston Globe in a press release that Todd “is assured that when all of the details are thought of — and even litigated — these allegations will probably be confirmed to be with out benefit.”

Martin additionally famous that “over the course of his twenty yr profession in drugs, Dr. Derrick Todd has been acknowledged as a talented and completed rheumatologist, internist, and first care doctor. He has been totally cooperative with all investigations,” in keeping with the Globe.

The newspaper spoke with six ladies who mentioned that they had been Todd’s sufferers at Brigham and Girls’s and at Charles River Medical Associates, all of whom spoke equally of a health care provider who received their belief after which persuaded them to bear intimate exams. 

One affected person, a nurse who labored at Brigham and Girls’s, noticed Todd in March 2020 for assist with persistent shoulder ache. She advised the Globe that Todd in the end decided that her issues weren’t rheumatological and instructed she grow to be a affected person in his main care apply. 

He allegedly pushed for a breast examination on her first main care go to, regardless of the nurse telling him she’d seen her gynecologist three months prior and didn’t want one, in keeping with the Globe.

“However it was not a standard breast examination,” she advised the newspaper, including, “All I can bear in mind is his respiratory.” Heavy respiratory, she clarified. 

Lana Ryder began seeing Todd in 2022 and agreed to affix his main care apply, in search of assist for hypermobility syndrome, in keeping with the Globe. 

“Each time I noticed him he was asking me about my intercourse life,” she advised the newspaper. “He would inform me to name him after I had relations with my boyfriend and inform him the way it went.” 

Todd reportedly satisfied her that she had pelvic ground dysfunction, a situation marked by issue enjoyable and coordinating pelvic ground muscle groups. In line with the Globe, he allegedly performed a “pelvic ground therapeutic massage” on Ryder in Might, an expertise so traumatic that it left her bleeding and weeping. 

Now, “I can’t belief folks within the medical subject any extra,” Ryder advised the Globe. “I felt tremendous violated. … I felt like a idiot, too, as a result of I believed it.”