The Boston Globe

September 2, 2004, Thursday THIRD EDITION

STATE FINES PSYCHIATRIST, SUSPENDS LICENSE

SECTION: METRO/REGION; Pg. B2

LENGTH: 125 words

State medical regulators indefinitely suspended the license of a Newton psychiatrist and fined her $2,500 yesterday for improperly obtaining confidential medical records of a patient. The patient had alleged that the psychiatrist’s husband, a neurologist, had inappropriately touched her. Investigators found that Dr. Deborah A. Sichel obtained the woman’s records from Newton-Wellesley Hospital in 2001 “in an attempt to discredit the patient’s complaint” about her husband to the Board of Registration in Medicine. Board director Nancy Achin Audesse called the actions by Sichel, who has not practiced medicine since 2002, “the most egregious case I’ve seen of a physician . . . violating the privacy of patient medical records.”