A Northfield obstetrician and gynecologist has been reprimanded and fined $10,000 by the Minnesota Board of Medical Practice for engaging in a sexual relationship with a patient.
Dr. Ann Friedmann, 52, was disciplined for unprofessional and unethical conduct, according to an order released Friday by the Minnesota Board of Medical Practices.
Friedmann denied wrongdoing, arguing that the patient initiated the sexual relationship, and that their professional relationship ended four days later in September 2005.
But the board found that Friedmann violated her legal and ethical duties to maintain professional boundaries, and that she had blurred the lines for months by taking overnight trips with her patient.
Friedmann, who worked at the Women's Health Center in Northfield, did not dispute the facts: She began treating the patient in January 2005, after they met at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. The patient, a 39-year-old woman with "a complex medical and psychiatric history," asked Friedmann to become her AA sponsor that April, and for a month, Friedmann agreed.
Over the next few months, the two took a trip to Orlando, Fla., with Friedmann's children, traveled together to a resort in Park Rapids, Minn., and to a hotel in Minnetonka. Friedmann admitted that they began a sexual relationship in September, and that four days later, she treated the patient at her clinic for an apparent assault.
Following a hearing in May, Administrative Law Judge Eric Lipman ruled that Friedmann violated Minnesota's Medical Practice Act and could be disciplined for her actions. "The best reading of the hearing record is that the required professional boundaries between Dr. F and Patient 1 eroded over time and then collapsed," he wrote.
The board ordered Friedmann to take a professional boundaries course, and to refrain from sexual contact with patients.
