The New Hampshire Board of Medicine last month suspended the medical license of Hanover psychiatrist and former Dartmouth Medical School professor Michael Gaylor for one year as a result of Gaylor's sexual involvement with a student.
The Board concluded Gaylor had been involved in a sexual relationship with a female student at the medical school while he was a professor there.
This was an unusual decision by the Board because it involved a professor-student relationship rather than a doctor-patient relationship.
According to the report issued by the Board of Medicine, Gaylor "engaged in professional misconduct between September 1984 and September 1991" in his roles as a psychiatrist and faculty advisor at the medical school.
During his time as a professor at DMS, Gaylor also had an office at Dick's House and served as the Director of the Office of Counseling and Human Development, according to the report.
The female medical student met with Gaylor four times during her first year at the medical school at his office in Dick's House, according to the report, in order to discuss "stress management issues for personal, mental health reasons."
Over the next three years, 1984 to 1986, the student met with Gaylor 22 times and discussed a variety of issues in sessions that "went well beyond the scope of ordinary 'academic counseling,'" the report stated.
The Board of Medicine concluded that the content of those sessions involved "substantial elements of 'psychological' or 'mental health' counseling that is typically used by licensed psychiatrists and thus put Gaylor and the student in the roles of physician and patient, according to the report.
During the counseling sessions a "dual relationship and eroticized transference issues" developed and a sexual relationship between the two parties commenced approximately eight weeks after the last counseling session, the report stated.
The sexual relationship between Gaylor and the student lasted from 1986 until 1991.
Gaylor resigned from the medical school in 1994 and had a private practice in Hanover afterward.
Gaylor's attorney declined to comment on the status of Gaylor's case. The female medical student's attorney was unavailable for comment on the ruling.
Associate Director of Public Affairs Roland Adams said the College had no offical opinion on the ruling.
