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Last updated on Tuesday, September 20, 2011
(BLOOMINGTON) - An Indianapolis pediatrician accused of sexting with what he thought was a 16-year-old girl now faces the possibility of losing his license to practice medicine.
The state attorney general said Dr. Nicholas Alan Doyle, 41, an associate professor at IU Medical School and a pediatrician at IU Health West Hospital, was sending video love notes and sexually explicit text messages and e-mails to a person he believed to be a high school cheerleader he'd met on Facebook.
In one video Doyle allegedly sent he's wearing scrubs and has a stethoscope around his neck. He looks in the camera and says: "Just want to say that I love you and hope you're having a good day."
Attorney General Greg Zoeller, says it appears that the doctor is sending a love note to his wife, but that is not the case.
"I can't wait to just fall asleep next to u :)," he wrote. "Feeling your legs over my shoulders."
The texts became vulgar as he tried to arrange a rendezvous with the teenager. He also sent pictures of himself, with and without clothes. Some of the photos were taken in his IU West Hospital office.
Doyle was turned in after someone called the hospital.
IU Health West Hospital eventually revoked his privileges, and IU Medical School fired him in May. In July, the state medical board suspended his license.
During an audio recording with the state medical board, Doyle says he made a mistake with someone he believed and trusted. He also told board members he learned "too late" that his Facebook "friendship" was not with a teenage cheerleader, but an adult man, who turned him in.
Doyle tried to convince the medical board he never believed he was sexting a child, but his texts seem to prove otherwise.
In one text message he wrote: "I just wish you were 20." He also shared fears that he was afraid of being arrested.
Doyle is not facing criminal charges because the legal age of consent in Indiana is 16 years old. So even if he did believe the person he was sexting was 16, it's not a crime.
That means the medical board is considering whether to revoke the license of a doctor who committed no criminal offense. But Senior Deputy Attorney General Michael Minglin told the medical board Doyle's bad judgment is proof he shouldn't be treating patients.
"The state maintains that he represents a clear and immediate danger to the public if allowed to practice," Minglin said.
The board agreed - suspending Doyle's medical license. But the suspension is temporary. Doyle's next hearing is Thursday. The board will decide whether to give him his medical license back or extend the suspension while the attorney general's office continues to investigate.
Minglin says all dealings before the medical board are public record. The Indiana Professional Licensing Agency offers a website where you can see a physicians disciplinary history.
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