An Orange County doctor who pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography could lose his medical license while behind bars.

Robert H. Dolin, a 55-year-old UC Irvine medical school graduate, has been licensed to practice since 1988.

He pleaded guilty in January in federal court, and last week, the Medical Board of California filed a petition seeking to revoke his license.

The board cited a section of state law saying someone who’s required to register as a sex offender cannot have a medical license, with a few exceptions. It also argues the nature of his conviction makes him unfit to be a doctor.

Dolin, a father of three who lived in Irvine and worked for Kaiser Permanente in Anaheim, used two company computers to download more than 1,000 images of child pornography, according to a plea agreement he signed. He also participated in online chats about child porn.

The images included some showing girls under the age of 5 being sexually assaulted by men.

Kaiser reported to federal authorities in 2008 that monitoring of employee computers had detected that Dolin’s computer was being used to visit “child exploitation websites,” according to a Department of Homeland Security press release. Dolin soon resigned, court records say.

In June, U.S. District Judge James Selna sentenced Dolin to 41 months in prison and ordered him to pay $8,000 restitution to a victim who has been identified in the pornography Dolin downloaded. That girl, known by the pseudonym of “Cindy,” was shown being molested by her father.

Federal Bureau of Prison records did not show Dolin as a current inmate, and it was not immediately clear whether he has begun serving his sentence. His attorney and the prosecutor on the case could not be reached Thursday.

Dolin could agree to the revocation of his medical license. If he challenges it, an administrative law judge will conduct a hearing and make a recommendation to a Medical Board panel.

Contact the writer: ehartley@ocregister.com or 949-229-5950