Less than seven months after testifying at the Massachusetts State House about being sexually abused by a Boston rheumatologist, Marblehead resident Rory McCarthy has helped shape a federal bill that would require medical professionals nationwide to offer patients the option of a chaperone during sensitive exams.
COURTESY PHOTO
Filed Oct. 31 by U.S. Reps. Lori Trahan and Jim McGovern (both of Massachusetts) and Debbie Dingell (of Michigan), the Protect Patients from Health Care Abuse Act seeks to close loopholes that have allowed doctors to exploit patients under the guise of sensitive medical exams.
“Patients deserve to feel safe when they see their doctor,” said Dingell in a statement released by Trahan’s office. “Anything less is unacceptable.”
McCarthy told the Current that the idea for the bill began to take shape in early 2024, while she was still working through post-traumatic stress from her experience with Dr. Derrick Todd, who faces criminal charges after allegations of sexual abuse from nearly 250 former patients.
“No one was there to be a chaperone, no one was there to hear anything, oversee things, keep things in check, [or] question why a rheumatologist was consistently doing sensitive exams on patients that were coming in for autoimmune diseases,” she said, recalling how he would schedule appointments when the office was quiet.
Her review of other high-profile cases, including those of Larry Nassar and Robert Hadden, revealed a nationwide pattern of doctors exploiting patients in situations lacking supervision.
That’s when McCarthy reached out to State Rep. Jenny Armini of Marblehead, who filed legislation on Beacon Hill.
Having interned for McGovern a decade ago, McCarthy reconnected with his office and helped build a coalition with Trahan and Dingell, working with survivor networks and advocacy groups to shape the bill’s language.
The legislation, she said, has been 18 months in the making. The measure would require doctors to inform patients of their right to have a chaperone present and prohibit sensitive exams if one isn’t available. It would also link compliance to Medicare funding, ensuring hospitals and clinics face consequences for failing to protect patients.
“It’s no longer safe for this type of information, this legislation, this policy, to be left to the hospital systems,” she said. “I believe that had this policy been put in place 10 years ago, he would not have gotten to me.” McCarthy said she hopes federal action will extend the reach of her ongoing state-level advocacy.
“This is a national problem that needs a national policy,” she said. “My goal is for this to become a bipartisan bill that will… help save patients and protect our medical system by rebuilding trust with it.”
That trust has been hard to recover, McCarthy says, especially because Todd allegedly preyed upon a particularly vulnerable population that depends on the medical system to remain healthy.
“After going through and living through what happened, I’ve had a very difficult time rebuilding trust within the medical system,” she said. “My goal is that this legislation… is going to help me feel safe but also help so many other people that no longer feel safe because this has a ripple effect and it’s something that does not just go away — the PTSD part — everyone is impacted differently.”
For McCarthy, the effort represents both systemic change and personal empowerment.
“It removes my narrative from feeling like a victim to feeling like someone who has taken back her power, her voice and her story,” she said.
The federal bill complements ongoing state-level reforms she helped facilitate, including a chaperone policy and an effort to remove Massachusetts’ charitable immunity caps, which currently limit civil damages to $20,000 in sexual abuse cases.
She encourages others to contact their representatives in support of the bill.
“Massachusetts is a leader in the medical world,” she said. “It is only right that it becomes a leader in protecting patients through healthcare policies.”
The Massachusetts legislation is still working its way through committees and has yet to be voted on.
