Patient Says Physician Sexually Abused Her : Investigation: Hidden Hills doctor denies the allegation. He says she made it up after reading an article on misconduct.

A family-practice doctor who is also a Hidden Hills city councilman has been accused of sexually abusing a female patient during a gynecological exam.

Dr. H. Brian Herdeg, 64, was charged with having intercourse and fondling the breasts of a patient who came to his Woodland Hills office for a Pap smear in 1992, according to the Medical Board of California.

In an interview, Herdeg denied the accusation, saying the woman was not in his office at the time she claims and that she fabricated the charges after reading a magazine article about physicians who engage in sexual misconduct.

“It may be a hallucination,” said Herdeg. “If she in her mind believes it happened, it may be awfully hard to un-hallucinate her.”

The woman, identified in a medical board complaint only as S.M., arrived at Herdeg’s office about 5 p.m. on Nov. 13, 1992, for a Pap smear, according to state investigators. Shortly after she got there, Herdeg’s receptionist left the office, the state accusation said.

Herdeg took the patient into an examination room, asked her to lie on a table and proceeded to conduct a breast exam. During the exam, he fondled both of the woman’s breasts, according to the complaint.

After that, the doctor asked the woman to place her feet in the exam table’s stirrups and had intercourse with her, the complaint said.

The woman tried to sit up, but the doctor yelled, “Don’t move! If you just close your eyes you’ll be able to relax.” Afraid for her safety, the patient laid back down, the state complaint contends.

About two minutes later, Herdeg withdrew from the woman, picked up a chart from a counter, smiled at her and left his office, according to the complaint. The patient put on her clothes and left too.

Dixon Arnett, the medical board’s executive director, said in the complaint that Herdeg’s alleged actions constitute sexual abuse and misconduct and should result in his medical license being revoked or suspended. Herdeg is also charged with incompetence, dishonesty and corruption.

Herdeg, a 1962 graduate of UC Irvine medical school, has served since 1984 on the City Council of Hidden Hills, a wealthy, gated enclave just west of Woodland Hills. From 1990 to 1992, he was the city’s mayor. He has also has been president of the Hidden Hills Homeowners Assn. and a member of the city Public Safety Commission.

Herdeg acknowledged that the woman has been a patient of his for 14 years but denied that the alleged abuse took place. He said he plans to sue her for defamation.

“The patient was not in my office on the day in question, or for that matter at any time in November, 1992,” he said, reading from a prepared statement.

“Both my wife, who is my office manager, and my back-office medical assistant were in the office on the date and time in question and confirm that the allegations are completely fraudulent.”

Herdeg said he did see the patient on “subsequent occasions” between the beginning of December, 1992, and May, 1993. But he said he has “never performed a gynecological exam on any patient without a chaperone present.”

“I have a 35-year record that has been clean up to this moment,” he said, adding that the state has never targeted him for disciplinary action before. A medical board spokeswoman confirmed that no other charges have been filed against him since he received his doctor’s license in 1957.

*

Herdeg said that the woman contacted the medical board after reading a 1993 article in Redbook magazine about an Alaska doctor who raped several patients before he finally confessed to the crimes during a taped telephone conversation with one victim.

The article said that in 1992, 120 U.S. doctors had their licenses revoked or restricted because of sexual misconduct with patients, double the number in 1991.