The Daily Show's OB/GYN Expert Had Sex with His Patient

He's anti-vaccine, too! Nice one, Daily Show

*Warning: this post has details about sexual exploitation*

I was sent an Instagram video of Michelle Wolf interviewing Dr. Stuart James Fischbein on The Daily Show about the supposed fear-based model of medical obstetrics. The clip was cringe, and no, we OB/GYNs are not trained to fear pregnancy and delivery. So I went to the full video on their YouTube channel as I have been off work and quite sick and looking for something to energize me (I’m improving now, so don't worry). When Dr. Fischbein compared cow labor to human labor, I groaned. Apparently, they don’t induce cows, so clearly, we shouldn’t induce women. Or something.

Why yes, sir, we should look to veterinarian medicine for mammals with different uteri, vaginas, pelvises, and placentas (and who sometimes have litters and occasionally eat their babies) to guide us with human births.

LIKE WTF? I am assuming if Dr. Fischbein ever gets a femoral head fracture, he would also like to be treated like we treat cattle. (It’s not pleasant, according to the Merck manual). Just maybe, maybe, we don't treat human labor like labor for cows because women aren’t cows, and unlike calves, human babies need to do more with their brains than eat grass. Then again, maybe it’s only women who should be treated like animals. 

(No shade meant to veterinarians at all! You are amazing. It’s just people should get people care, and cows should get veterinarian care).

I wondered, who dreams this up? So I checked out Dr. Stuart James Fischbein’s Instagram page, the one linked to via The Daily Show Instagram clip, to ensure I had the right guy. It's awesome (sarcasm font) for The Daily Show to send him their traffic, boosting his algorithmic engagement.

He’s a doctor, but his page gave me total anti-vaccine vibes, so I did what Michelle Wolf and the team at The Daily Show apparently didn’t do (or if they did and ignored what they found, it’s worse). I looked up Dr. Stuart James Fischbein on The Medical Board of California website. What I found in their official documents was that he had sex with a woman for whom he had performed endometriosis surgery just 12 days before. Yes, 12, you read that correctly. Here is a short summary of the case against him from the Medical Board of California,  January 2008 Newsletter: 

FISCHBEIN, STUART JAMES, M.D. (G52027)

Los Angeles, CA

Criminal conviction for having sexual relations with a patient. Revoked, stayed, placed on 7 years probation with terms and conditions including, but not limited to, completing an ethics course, an educational course in addition to required CME, and must have a third-party chaperone present while consulting, examining, or treating female patients. October 10, 2007 

Yes, the Daily Show expert talked about using fear and control during his segment (see above)…and he had sex with a patient. 

The Background

Here’s what you find by looking up Dr. Fischbein on the Medical Board of California’s public document search.  

It’s one case that resulted in two decisions and a final completion of probation.

To be sure this isn’t a case of mistaken identity (after all, there are other Jennifer Gunters out there), I checked, and only one Stuart James Fischbein is licensed to practice medicine in California. Both the Medical Board of California and Birthing Instinct, his website per The Daily Show, state the following about Dr. Fischbein:

• Did OB/GYN residency at Cedars-Sinai and finished in 1986

• Certified by the American Board of OB/GYN in 1989 (but we’ll get to that shortly)

• Midwives play a significant role in his practice

In addition, Tom Kisken covered this case for the Ventura County Star in 2008 (here is a quote from an archived version):

“Stuart Fischbein, a well-regarded Camarillo physician who co-wrote a book on fearless pregnancies, was convicted June 13, 2006, in Los Angeles Superior Court of a misdemeanor offense of sexually exploiting a patient. That would have likely meant the end of his practice if he were a psychologist, a social worker or a respiratory therapist.”

Dr. Fischbein says on his website that he co-wrote a book called, “Fearless Pregnancies, Wisdom, & Reassurance from a Doctor, a Midwife and a Mom.” So, yeah, this is the same guy.

But I am also not the first to notice Dr. Fischbein’s past. Dr. Amy Tuteur called him a "sexual predator" on her blog in 2012 (and it seems as far back as 2009, she was mentioning his history in the comments section of another blog). In 2013, a Doula raised concerns on her own blog. And when I tweeted a comment about how it’s best to have a medical expert who hasn’t had sex with a patient, one of my Twitter followers, who was active in an online evidence-based birth and parenting group, told me she had known about Dr. Fischbein for years and was disappointed to see him interviewed by The Daily Show.

Michelle Wolf and the Daily Show, the fact that Dr. Fischbein had been put on probation for having sex with a patient is on the first page of a Google search of his name (from a ca.gov site, no less) and should have disqualified him from being asked to give his opinion about anything in medicine. It took a few minutes to find out he spouts anti-vaccine rhetoric and another two or so to find out that he is not currently board-certified in OB/GYN. Do better. On the other hand, if you are going for a more “Fox and Friends” feel with your revamped, no permanent host format, then carry on; you are doing great! Treating women like cattle is a fine start. 

The Complaint

In August 2005, a patient who was 35 years old with a history of endometriosis came to see Dr. Fischbein for pelvic pain. At her second visit, September 8, 2005, he recommended surgery as she had pain and mass on ultrasound. On September 16, Dr. Fischbein performed a laparotomy, which is a major surgery. (Note: the Medical Board filing states the surgery date is September 16, 2006, but all the other dates after are 2005, so I will assume it is a typo, and her surgery was Sept. 16, 2005). She had two ovarian cysts (one an endometrioma) and one of her oviducts (Fallopian tubes) removed, as well as removal of adhesions. With endometriosis, not only is this a big surgery, it is often a very painful and long recovery. 

Dr. Fischbein saw this patient twice while she was recovering in the hospital, which is typical after big surgery. What he spoke about with his patient was not. Here is what the Medical Board of California reported (S.K. is the patient, S.C. is her boyfriend, and the respondent is Fischbein).

So three, possibly only two days after he had his hands inside her pelvis doing surgery, he was thinking of her as a woman, not a patient? I would expect this to be the kind of guy The Daily Show would rip apart, but I guess when you have a particular story you want to tell, that’s what really matters. 

Dr. Fischbein called his patient daily during her initial recovery. They spoke about her boyfriend and the ethical considerations of dating a patient, so not the standard post-operative check-ins. The patient then broke up with her boyfriend. 

Here are the details from the Medical Board of California’s descriptions of the sexual exploitation. September 28 is 12 days after her surgery. 

There is no excuse for this, and saying he was going through a difficult time because of his divorce or having recently had shingles or whatever is bullshit and pathetic. I’ve been divorced twice, and one of my kids died at birth, and somehow, I have managed not to violate anyone, let alone a patient, sexually. 

What Happened in 2011, the “Bedside Man” Incident 

Dr. Fischbein was put on probation in 2007 for seven years. However, there was an administrative mix-up about the length of the probation. In 2011, Dr. Fischbein asked to end his probation early. He had complied with all the terms of his probation, but his motion was denied.

Why, you ask?

There were a few reasons. He “chaffed” at the requirement for a chaperone (a third party in the room at all times to help protect patients) and a few other things related to getting hospital privileges and renewal of his American Board of OB/GYN certification didn’t sit well with the medical board. But the one item that seems to really stand out is the side-project he was working on. Here is the description from the Medical Board of California because you have to read it to believe it:

Yes, even after completing the boundaries course that is supposed to educate you and help you avoid crossing boundaries again, he decided to write a movie about minimizing his culpability in having sex with a patient. And he produced a trailer? And he called it Bedside Man?????? What if that poor woman he sexually exploited saw it?

In 2015, his probation was lifted.

Dr. Fischbein is Not Certified By ABOG

If you want a medical expert, one useful criterion, besides not having sex with a patient, is that they are board-certified in their chosen field. In OB/GYN in America, that is the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology or ABOG. Dr. Fischbein is not currently board-certified in OB/GYN. He was originally certified in 1989, as his website and The Medical Board of California both state, but not anymore.

But Wait, There’s more! He’s also Anti-Vaccine.

Dr. Fischbein has a podcast called “Birthing Instincts,” and episode #251 is full-on anti-vaccine.

Here are some choice quotes, which is pretty stock anti-vaccine propaganda:

"The healthiest people in the world are the people who are unvaccinated.... at least in first world countries” (14:48)

“The CDC and the NIH do not want to know how many babies are being killed by vaccination. Vaccination that over time has been proven to be less and less useful, and effective, sometimes actually has negative efficacy, doesn't do the same as natural immunity.... everyone knows that, and yet they still argue that in the COVID thing and natural immunity, well it wasn't proven and blah blah blah. You know what, you don't need a study. As we say all the time on the podcast,  you do not need a study to prove the obvious.” (19:57)

“You've been lying to us since the 1960s on vaccines. And you’re lying to us about just about everything right now. Stop believing them. When they come out with a new lie. Stop believing them. Anything you watch on the mainstream news. It's false.” (28:35, the “You’ve” at the beginning is apparently the government)

Seriously, this alone should have disqualified him from the interview. 

Research and Expertise Matter in Medicine and in Journalism

It is disgusting for the Daily Show segment to feature Dr. Fischbein at all. But then, to let him incorrectly state that the problems with obstetrics in the United States are almost solely created by fear-mongering by OB/GYNs, and the solution is trusting the body and, I guess, giving up epidurals? I reached out to a mom who had been very actively involved in learning about birth online and who watched the segment and was aware of Dr. Fischbein told me, “Their position seems to be that you shouldn’t scare women about childbirth, you should make sure they’re informed about the facts, but their version of the facts is “if you relax childbirth is easy.” The reason childbirth is scary is because being fully informed means learning about a lot of scary things that can happen. I felt fully informed going into it because I wanted to know all the gory details and possible outcomes, and as a result, when I ended up with a c-section, I was quite unbothered because I knew it could happen. There are so many improvements that could be made to maternity care (I had a shitty time on the ward after my son was born)…I just hate the minimizing of the serious realities of birth and the false expectations it results in.”

There are so many important things to say about the state of obstetrical care in America and our terrible maternal mortality rate, especially among Black women. We cannot ignore medical racism. Many studies have shown inequities in care for Black women versus white women. It’s important to also talk about perinatal care, insurance issues (both coverage and reimbursement as well as the encroachment of Venture Capital firms), doulas, home deliveries, the impact of malpractice litigation, vaginal twin and breech deliveries, hospital understaffing, the closure of labor and delivery units, and the impact of forced birth legislation. I no longer practice obstetrics, so I am not the expert to guide this conversation, but I can think of five excellent board-certified candidates off the top of my head, and none of them have had sex with any of their patients, and they understand the vaccine literature. It’s not hard to find real experts if expertise is actually what you want.

If the only doctor you can find to support your agenda spouts anti-vaccine propaganda, isn’t board-certified in the field, was on probation for having sex with a patient 12 days after major surgery that he performed, and who, after completing a course on boundaries as part of his probations, wanted to make a movie about this experience called “Bedside Man,” well, maybe you need to revise your agenda. 

Sources

Medical Board of California January 2008 Newsletter https://www.mbc.ca.gov/Download/Newsletters/newsletter-2008-01.pdf

Medical Board's Action on 123 Sexual Exploitation Cases Seen As Not EnoughManaging Misconduct, Archived at BishopAccountability.org https://www.bishop-accountability.org/news2008/01_02/2008_01_06_Kisken_MedicalBoards.htm

Dr. Stuart James Fischbein’s medical license https://search.dca.ca.gov/details/8002/G/52027/abc2572712f8c208a7e622934c700aa3

Proof of noncertification from ABOG for Dr. Stuart James Fischbein https://www.abog.org/verify-physician?name=Stuart+Fischbein&state=CA&physid=

Medical Board of California, 2007 Documents https://www2.mbc.ca.gov/PDL/document.aspx?path=%5cDIDOCS%5c20070910%5cDMRAAABI1%5c&did=AAABI070910222910843.DID&licenseType=G&licenseNumber=52027#page=1

Medical Board of California 2011 documents https://www2.mbc.ca.gov/PDL/document.aspx?path=%5cDIDOCS%5c20110401%5cDMRAAADE1%5c&did=AAADE110401172307718.DID&licenseType=G&licenseNumber=52027#page=1

Medical Board of California 2015 document https://www2.mbc.ca.gov/PDL/document.aspx?path=%5cDIDOCS%5c20150209%5cDMRAAAEY1%5c&did=AAAEY150209164212971.DID&licenseType=G&licenseNumber=52027#page=1

Skeptical OB https://www.skepticalob.com/2012/10/why-are-homebirth-advocates-lauding-a-sexual-predator.html

American Home Birth Blog https://whatifsandfears.blogspot.com/2013/02/a-fischy-doctor.html