Should Men Be Gynecologists?
With over 1,700 known victims, these three shouldn’t
A couple of weeks ago, Columbia University released a report revealing the institution covered up rampant sexual abuse by gynecologist Robert Hadden, who was finally busted for sexually abusing hundreds of women in 2023 (Columbia Spectator, 2026). In addition to this independent investigation, Columbia is being criminally investigated by the New York Attorney General’s Office (ProPublica, 2026).
If you were personally affected, you can submit your settlement claim HERE.
This is not the only case of a male gynecologist abusing patients. One of the most cited studies on physician sexual abuse of patients, DuBois et al (2019), cites gynecology as one of the medical professions with the highest rates of sexual abuse, along with psychiatry and family practice. The same study found that 100% of perpetrators were male. In 96% of cases, the abuse was repeated, and in 58% of cases, it lasted more than two years.
The recent high-profile cases alone are damning. So is the institutional silence that protected the perpetrators. James Heaps, George Tyndall, and Robert Hadden each held top positions in gynecology at prestigious universities. Each of them abused hundreds of women who came to them in good faith for healthcare. And in each case, the university knew, looked the other way, and kept him in the room with patients.
James Heaps, UCLA (500+ victims)
Heaps spent 35 years as a gynecologist at UCLA, where he was once the highest-paid physician in the entire UC system (CBS News, 2023). That status insulated him. Female doctors at UCLA were warning colleagues not to see Heaps as far back as the 1980s, and the California Medical Board launched a sexual misconduct investigation against him in the 1990s, during which investigators visited his office and took photographs, with the knowledge of at least one of his supervisors. UCLA did nothing. Dr. Michael T. Johnson, UCLA’s Vice Chair of Clinical Affairs for OB-GYN, had known Heaps since at least 1998, received patient complaints, and witnessed Heaps’ abusive conduct firsthand. His supervisory role gave him the ability to act. He did not. Heaps kept practicing for another two decades (Thom Law Offices, 2019).
A 2020 UCLA internal review found that Heaps had used painful vaginal examination techniques, unnecessarily groped and touched patients during exams, and made inappropriate sexual comments to patients and staff (NPR, 2022). More than 500 lawsuits were filed, accusing UCLA of failing to protect patients after becoming aware of the misconduct and deliberately concealing abuse that had been happening for decades (CBS News, 2023). When UCLA finally began investigating him in 2017, they sent patients a letter announcing with “mixed emotions” that Heaps was retiring (Los Angeles Times, 2019). Mixed emotions. For decades of documented abuse.
UCLA’s total payouts tied to the Heaps lawsuits reached nearly $700 million (ABC7, 2026). Heaps was convicted on five felony counts in 2022, including sexual battery by fraud and sexual penetration of unconscious patients, and sentenced to 11 years. In February 2026, a California appeals court overturned the conviction and ordered a retrial, citing concerns about a juror’s English proficiency (NPR, 2026). He has not yet faced a retrial. He remains free.
George Tyndall, USC (710 victims)
Tyndall worked at USC’s student health clinic from 1989 to 2016, and for the majority of that time, he was the only full-time gynecologist on staff (Lieff Cabraser, 2019). He had a captive patient population, many of them teenagers who had never seen a gynecologist before and had no idea what a legitimate exam was supposed to look like. He used that to his advantage.
The complaints against him included forcing patients to undress completely while he watched, groping their breasts, digitally penetrating their vaginas and anuses often without gloves and with unwashed hands, photographing their genitals and naked bodies, and making racist, misogynistic, and sexually harassing comments (Arias Sanguinetti, 2021). When detectives eventually searched his home, they found more than 1,000 videos described as homemade sex tapes and numerous sexually explicit photographs. Some were made at the clinic (NBC News, 2021).
USC received complaints about Tyndall’s behavior as early as 1991, but took no steps to stop him (JJS Justice, 2021). In 2016, a chaperone nurse finally reported him to a rape crisis center. That prompted an internal investigation, but Tyndall didn’t leave the clinic until 2017, and even then USC gave him a secret financial payout and let him walk away quietly. He was charged with 29 felonies in 2019 but died in October 2023 before ever standing trial. USC ultimately paid more than $1 billion to settle claims from hundreds of women, between an $852 million settlement with over 700 individual plaintiffs and a separate $215 million class action settlement covering roughly 18,000 women who had been his patients (NPR, 2021).
USC President Max Nikias ultimately left the university because of the Tyndall scandal, with a $7.6 million exit package (KTLA, 2020). Former Los Angeles District Attorney Jackie Lacey, a USC law school graduate, was accused by survivors of having a “cozy relationship” with the university and declining to charge any administrators despite repeated requests. One survivor said flatly: “She declined to charge them, over and over, while we asked her to” (FOX 11 Los Angeles, 2021). No administrator was ever charged.
Robert Hadden, Columbia (576 Victims)
Hadden abused patients at Columbia University Irving Medical Center and New York-Presbyterian Hospital for approximately 25 years, from around 1987 to 2012. Despite multiple women coming forward alleging sexual assault, he did not have to register as a sex offender in New York State (PCVA, 2023). On any given day during his two decades of practice, he saw 25 to 40 patients. Tens of thousands came under his care.
The first chance Columbia had to stop him came in 2012, and they used it to protect him instead. When a patient called 911 after Hadden assaulted her during a routine postpartum checkup, he was arrested that Friday. By Monday, his supervisor John Evanko had sent him a letter clearing him to return to patients, copying department chair Dr. Mary D’Alton, New York-Presbyterian president Robert Kelly, and medical school dean Dr. Lee Goldman. D’Alton had been physically present at the clinic when police arrived. Columbia let Hadden continue practicing for another five weeks. Eight patients say he assaulted them in that time (ProPublica, 2023).
Columbia’s obstruction extended to the criminal investigation. After prosecutors began investigating Hadden in 2012, Columbia failed to hand over evidence despite subpoenas, and did not tell the district attorney when more patients came forward. The Manhattan DA’s office found Columbia’s conduct so concerning that it launched a criminal investigation into the university itself, finding that Columbia had, by neglecting to place document-retention holds, “intended to destroy” relevant emails (ProPublica, 2023). Former DA Cyrus Vance Jr. later said Columbia’s failure to cooperate likely affected his office’s decision to accept a lenient plea. His deputy Karen Friedman Agnifilo was blunter: Columbia, she said, “didn’t have clean hands here. If they didn’t know, it’s because they chose not to know” (ProPublica, 2023).
The result of that obstruction was a 2016 plea deal that let Hadden walk. He pleaded guilty to one felony and one misdemeanor, lost his medical license, and served no jail time (PCVA, 2023). The attorney representing hundreds of his former patients called it closer to early paid retirement than a sentence for a convicted predator. After the plea, Columbia still did not alert thousands of his former patients. The university waited until 2022, just days before a major filing deadline for civil claims, to notify patients about his history of abuse (Sokolove Law, 2024). Victims were directed to report their experiences to Columbia’s general counsel rather than law enforcement.
It took Evelyn Yang, the wife of presidential candidate Andrew Yang, going on live television to describe Hadden assaulting her while she was pregnant before federal prosecutors moved. Hadden was convicted in January 2023 on four federal counts of enticing and inducing individuals to travel interstate to engage in illegal sexual activity (CNN, 2023). Judge Richard Berman called the case “like no other in my experience in terms of horrendous, beyond extraordinary, depraved sexual assault” and sentenced Hadden to the maximum: 20 years in federal prison (ABC News, 2023).
Through all of it, university president Lee Bollinger, who was alerted to Hadden’s arrest the night it happened, never faced any consequences. He retired in 2023, celebrated by a university that continues to uphold itself as a place where eternal virtues are taught and practiced (ProPublica, 2023). For more than a decade after Hadden’s first arrest, not a single Columbia administrator lost their job or faced discipline of any kind. D’Alton and Goldman did not step down until the external investigation report was released in March 2026, fourteen years after they signed the letter putting Hadden back in the exam room (ProPublica, 2026).
In May 2025, Columbia reached a $750 million settlement with 576 survivors, reportedly the largest per-plaintiff civil resolution in U.S. history, averaging $1.3 million per case (Sokolove Law, 2024). The March 2026 external investigation, commissioned by Columbia and New York-Presbyterian and conducted by attorney Joan Loughnane of Sidley Austin LLP, found that reports had reached physician leaders for years and that the institutional culture actively discouraged staff from coming forward (New York Times, 2026).
Stories like these three make me wonder, in horror, at the days when only men could be doctors. Thankfully, those days are long past. Now, I’m not saying you shouldn’t book an appointment with a male gynecologist. My point, as always, is that appearances, credentials, and status are morally meaningless. Furthermore, they are especially meaningless when it comes to determining how a man treats women behind closed doors. Being a male gynecologist with Ivy League credentials says nothing about a man’s feminism or goodness. The adage, “Yes, All Men,” rather than literally saying every single man is a rapist, is pointing to the reality that any man, in any category, with any credentials, can be a predator.
And when even our “great institutions” protect them, all the men (and even, as shown in these stories, women) who uphold, defend, or simply turn a blind eye to these predators are part of the problem. As of now, beyond the perpetrators themselves, no one at any of the three institutions has faced criminal accountability for the well-documented negligence and even attempted cover-ups of widespread sexual abuse of women by these predators. We can only hope the New York Attorney General’s Office finds Columbia University guilty.
Note to fellow survivors: If you’re triggered or even just feeling down after reading this, I wanted to provide a list of survival resources. You can also reach out to me on Substack. I’m no therapist, but I’m happy to be a peer in survival.