A prominent doctor at New York’s Mount Sinai Hospital is reportedly being sought for questioning after a woman accused him of masturbating on her while she was incapacitated with morphine. The New York Daily News reports that Dr. David H. Newman was being sought by police by Wednesday, and that the hospital has temporarily barred him from seeing patients.


According to the Daily News exclusive, which is extremely graphic and the stuff of emergency room nightmares, the woman, 22, alleges that she went to the ER on Monday night because of shoulder pain. She told police she got a shot of morphine from a nurse, but that Newman came in a short while later and, she believes, administered another.

After that, the News reports, the woman said the doctor fondled her breasts, then moved her bed away from the wall and turned his back to her, after which she “heard the sounds of someone masturbating—and then felt a liquid substance on her face.” The hospital told the News they’re aware of allegations against Newman and that he’s been barred from seeing patients.


Newman, an Iraq War veteran, was the subject of a Wired profile about a website he built to provide doctors with “quick summaries of evidence-based medicine.” He’s written an op-ed for the New York Times on gun violence, and teaches at both Mount Sinai School of Medicine and Columbia University, where he gave a 2011 TedX talk:

Contact the author at anna.merlan@jezebel.com .

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