Las Vegas Review Journal
Medical board complaint: Psychiatrist had sex with patient after suicide attempt
By Mary Hynes
August 29, 2024

— Excerpt

A Nevada medical board committee has filed a complaint against a Reno psychiatrist alleging that he had sex with a patient who had just attempted suicide instead of taking her to a hospital or calling police.

The investigative committee of the Nevada State Board of Medical Examiners filed the complaint on Aug. 14 against Dr. Abdollah Assad, alleging that he violated the state’s Medical Practice Act.

The complaint states that Assad, licensed in Nevada since 2004, had been treating the patient since 2011, documenting her history of “anxiety and problematic relationships that included her difficult relationship with her boyfriend on repeated occasions.”

In September 2020, Assad documented a telephone visit with the 31-year-old patient, who said she was moving out of state. During the visit, he prescribed Latuda, Xanax and Adderall, the complaint states. The patient is not named in the board’s complaint.

In October 2020, the patient, who was staying in a motel, contacted Assad and “admitted to having attempted suicide,” according to the complaint.

The psychiatrist did not instruct the patient “to go to an emergency room, call an ambulance, or call police but instead came to the motel” and picked her up. He then did not take the patient to the hospital or attempt to initiate a legal mandatory hold to observe the patient after her suicide attempt.

Instead, he took her “to another motel, and engaged in sexual intercourse with her despite his awareness of troublesome relationships in the past and her obvious fragile state,” the complaint states…

The complaint appears to have been triggered by a report to the board of a settlement amount of $280,000 in connection with a lawsuit that alleged an improper sexual relationship with a patient and Assad prescribing medication inappropriately…