Psychiatrist Accused of Improper Sex

A Santa Ana psychiatrist whose license was suspended in 1987 for having an affair with a patient has been accused by state officials of gross negligence and incompetence for having a sexual relationship with another client.

The accusation, filed by the Medical Board of California last month in Sacramento, seeks to revoke 51-year-old Dr. Jeffrey Moran’s medical license. Authorities level seven allegations, including having an improper sexual relationship with the 30-year-old patient, excessively prescribing controlled drugs and asking the patient to deny the affair to the medical board.

He also allegedly lied to police in an attempt to have the patient involuntarily committed to a mental institution.

“It is rare but not unheard-of” for the medical board to have to seek discipline a second time against a doctor for a serious offense, said Medical Board spokeswoman Candis Cohen.

Neither Moran nor his lawyer returned telephone calls seeking comment Thursday.

Moran, who continues to practice in Santa Ana, is accused of beginning the 16-month romantic relationship with the woman patient in mid-1995. He initially treated her for stress and successfully recommended that she receive state disability.

During the liaison, Moran paid her college tuition, rented her a house, paid for her to have breast augmentation and provided excessive amounts of controlled substances--including narcotics and barbiturates--for the patient by writing prescriptions in the name of her friends or family members, according to the accusation.

The relationship turned to crisis in a stormy meeting in his office on Oct. 16, 1996, when Moran’s wife confronted him and the patient, according to the accusation. Moran’s wife already had threatened to expose his conduct to the medical board unless he ended the affair.

Moran is accused of attacking the patient in an attempt to restrain her when the patient talked about the affair in front of his wife. The board accused Moran of “grabbing her arms, bending her arms and fingers back, shaking her, and throwing her to the floor.” The patient struck her head on a bookcase and received bruises on her arms.

At that point, Moran had his wife call police and “falsely and dishonestly” attempted to have sheriff’s deputies put the patient in a psychiatric facility on an involuntary committal “as a danger to herself and others,” according to the accusation.

The deputies declined to commit the woman after determining that Moran was lying to them, according to the Medical Board accusation.

Medical licensing authorities consider any allegation of improper sexual activity to be “a very serious charge,” said Deputy Atty. Gen. Steven H. Zeigen, who is handling the case. It would warrant revocation of a psychiatrist’s license, if proven, because it violates the professional boundary between therapist and patient, he said.

Engaging in a sexual relationship with a patient is particularly dangerous because it takes advantage of a vulnerable individual who is not in a healthy mental state, say experts.

“What makes this even more egregious . . . is that we know that Dr. Moran is a recidivist,” said Zeigen. “Within two years of probation being terminated for similar conduct, he engages in the same conduct with another patient to the detriment of the patient’s mental stability.”

License Suspended in 1986

The board suspended Moran’s medical license for six months in 1986 after finding he had a 14-month affair with a patient, who he permitted to drink wine at therapy sessions and with whom he discussed his personal life. This conduct is considered “gross negligence and an extreme departure from the practice of psychiatry,” according to the administrative law judge who heard the case.

In addition, Moran was placed on probation for seven years, during which time he was barred from solo practice and required to undergo a rededication program. The board agreed to end his probation in 1993 after Moran argued he was rehabilitated.

License suspension for any period of time is considered a heavy penalty, medical board spokeswoman Cohen said. Revocation is the ultimate penalty, she said.

Moran could face stricter sanctions this time. The medical board can seek immediate suspension of the license of a doctor who commits serious violations of medical practice.

Zeigen declined to comment on whether that would be done in this case, but noted that the repeat nature of the alleged offense is unusual.

“In the five years I have been handling cases like this, it is the first time I have seen a doctor coming before the board for the same conduct,” he said.

The board learned of the matter when the patient filed a complaint. She also has sued Moran in Superior Court.

During the course of the alleged affair, Moran told the patient he loved her and that he wanted her to be his wife, came between her and her husband, “insinuated himself into her familial and social relationships,” but told her he could not afford to leave his wife and four children, according to the filing.

Describing his actions as gross negligence, the medical board said that during the relationship, the woman experienced increasing depression and guilt and was voluntarily committed for several days in April after finding herself drinking excessively and neglecting her children.

After the in-office confrontation, her depression deepened, according to the filing, and she was admitted to a psychiatric facility for “major depression with constant thoughts of suicide,” the filing said.

“Her condition deteriorated at a time when Dr. Moran was charged with enhancing her mental well-being,” said Zeigen.

Moran, who was licensed in California in 1979, received his medical degree from the University of San Carlos in Guatemala in 1972 and completed his residency at the Menninger School of Psychiatry and Neurology in Topeka, Kansas.

Moran’s case will be heard by an administrative law judge, who will issue a proposed decision that the state Medical Board may adopt.