A 29-year-old medical assistant at Massachusetts General Hospital is accused of groping a patient during an exam that her doctor had not requested or approved, authorities said.
Leonardo Hernandez, of Jamaica Plain, is charged with indecent assault and battery on a person over 14, the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office said. A judge ordered him to stay away from the hospital and the alleged victim as part of his release on personal recognizance.
The patient called Boston police on April 12 to report the alleged incident that she said happened several weeks earlier.
She explained to investigators she had seen Hernandez at previous appointments at her dermatologist’s office at the Boston hospital. So, when he knocked on her examination room door to ask if she would like a skin examination, she assumed her physician had requested it.
The doctor had not, the prosecutor said.
Hernandez gave the woman a gown and left the room, but quickly returned and stayed in the room as she undressed, authorities said.
When the “exam” began, Hernandez caressed her legs, lifted her underwear to see her buttocks, rubbed her stomach with both hands, and asked multiple times to see her breasts, which she declined, the prosecutor said. Hernandez then tried to pull her gown down and left the room after she protested.
The woman called the dermatologist’s office the following day and learned the doctor had not ordered the exam. She told the patient that Hernandez was not authorized to conduct such procedures anyway, the prosecutor said.
District Attorney Kevin Hayden said in a news release about the arrest that patients who violated during a medical examination should contact authorities. He applauded the woman in this case for calling the police when she felt something was “just not right.”
“I commend this victim for speaking up when she determined that this situation was just not right,” he said in a news release. “All patients are entitled to safe and ethical treatment during their medical appointments. Anyone jeopardizing a patient’s safety or abusing and exceeding their professional responsibilities will be held accountable.”
An email to a spokesperson for Mass General was not immediately returned.
