Cedars-Sinai Medical Center has barred a Beverly Hills obstetrician-gynecologist from practicing at its facilities after an investigation into “concerning complaints from patients,” according to a spokesperson.
Dr. Barry Brock, a longtime physician who has advertised his low rate of cesarean section births, has had his hospital privileges terminated and the matter reported to the Medical Board of California, according to Cedars-Sinai.
“The type of behavior alleged about Dr. Brock is counter to Cedars-Sinai’s core values and the trust we strive to earn every day with our patients,” its spokesperson said.
Brock, 74, has denied any wrongdoing and said he had surrendered his privileges without any “fact finding” or “hearing on the merits” of the allegations. Cedars-Sinai did not immediately respond to those claims.
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In August, weeks after his privileges at Cedars-Sinai were suspended pending an investigation, Brock emailed current and former patients to announce he was retiring from medicine at the end of the month, saying the “uncertainty of how long this process will take” left him unable to deliver the care his patients would expect.
Neither Cedars-Sinai nor the medical board would discuss details of the allegations, saying they were confidential under the law.
Nine former patients have spoken with The Times about alleged experiences with Brock and two shared complaints they sent to Cedars-Sinai.
The written complaints and other records — including complaints to the state medical board and police reports — allege inappropriate remarks, unnecessary physical examinations, a botched medical procedure and the pressuring of a patient to undergo a vaginal birth when she sought a cesarean section.
Brock, who was in private practice and not employed by Cedars-Sinai at the time of his termination, denied any accusations of sexual misconduct and said “these few anonymous allegations” were not indicative of his skills or “my character that I have shown day-in and day-out in my practice and in the delivery room for 46 years.”
He said Cedars-Sinai had only offered a summary of the complaints, and that it was “not a fair process” to be asked to defend himself without being able to identify the patients involved.
“Any claim that I performed a medical examination or procedure for anything but a medical purpose or conducted it in a way for my own personal gratification, to discourage C-Sections, or to sexually harass a patient is an outrageously false claim,” Brock told The Times.
Brock left Cedars-Sinai’s physician network in 2018, the hospital spokesperson said, but retained delivery privileges at the medical center. He went first into private practice at Rodeo Drive Women’s Health Center in Beverly Hills and moved to a different private practice in Beverly Hills in January 2021.
In one complaint filed with the state medical board, a patient wrote: “Dr. Brock commented on the size of my breasts, proclaiming that my husband ‘must be enjoying these.’ This comment was made during an impromptu and forced breast exam.” (The Times is not naming the patient, as the case involves an accusation of sexual assault.)
Brock, responding to the allegation, told The Times that “this is not the type of comment I would ever make. I have performed clinical breast exams on thousands of women, and I am looking for medical issues.”
When the patient was admitted to Cedars-Sinai a week after her due date with low amniotic fluid, “Dr. Brock ordered the nursing staff to do everything possible to facilitate a natural delivery, which became torturous for me,” she wrote in her medical board complaint. “Mine and my husband’s requests to Cedars staff for a different OBGYN to deliver our baby fell on deaf ears.”
The patient wrote that she was diagnosed with an infection as labor wore on, and that her fetus’ heart rate plummeted. Brock eventually performed an emergency C-section roughly 20 hours after labor began.
The baby emerged blue and unresponsive, according to hospital records The Times reviewed, and required resuscitation.
The patient wrote that Brock’s first comments to her after birth were not about her infant’s condition, but about her vagina.
“After the surgery, Dr. Brock proclaimed that I would stay ‘nice and tight down there,’ ” she wrote in her medical board complaint.
Brock said in response that without sufficient information to review the patient’s medical records, “I cannot state what occurred here. If patients request a C-Section, I do not deny one and do what is best for the patient and the baby. I have done elective C-Sections throughout my career.”
As for the alleged comment, “I never use the words ‘tight’ to describe the vaginal canal,” Brock said.
Another patient who complained to Cedars-Sinai also reported her allegations to the Beverly Hills Police Department. As of mid-September, Brock said he hadn’t been contacted by the department.
In a police report reviewed by The Times, the patient described going to a gynecologist in 2020 to have him “flip” a breech baby. She said the doctor performed breast and vaginal exams on her before doing an ultrasound and made comments about her body, such as remarking on her not having stretch marks, the police report said.
The woman found his remarks to be “unprofessional” and said they “caused her to feel uncomfortable,” and said she felt the breast exam was unnecessary, according to the police report. It does not name the doctor, but the woman identified him as Brock.
The episode “made her feel like she had been taken advantage of,” the police report stated.
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Guidance from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists says that an ultrasound is necessary before attempting the procedure, but does not mention any other physical exams. Experts said performing a breast exam was not standard for the procedure, although a breast exam might be undertaken for other reasons, such as initiating care with a new patient.
Brock said such exams were standard for his new pregnant patients.
“Any patient who believed that they could simply show up at a new OB-GYN office and expect that physician to not perform a physical … did not understand the process of becoming a new patient,” he wrote. “If the patient had a physical issue that was missed due to me not performing a physical or breast exam, I would have been legally responsible for malpractice.”
As for his alleged comments, “I do not recall any exact instance of commenting on the lack of stretch marks in an inappropriate way,” he wrote. “However, there have been patients who did not have any stretch marks well into their pregnancy and when asked if it is possible to avoid stretch marks entirely, I have made comments such as ‘you are lucky.’ ”
A third former patient, who did not complain to Cedars-Sinai before the suspension, filed a complaint against Brock to the medical board in April and with Beverly Hills police in July. The doctor’s name was redacted from the police report copy provided to The Times; the patient confirmed it was Brock.
During her second pregnancy in 2022, the woman said Brock made comments about her body so frequently that she requested a chaperone be present during her visits with him, according to the police report.
Following delivery of her second child, Brock spent an unusually long time suturing what he said was a small labial tear, she told police and the medical board.
The sutures remained tight and painful weeks after the birth, she wrote in the medical board complaint. When she described the problem during a follow-up appointment, the woman wrote in the medical board complaint, Brock “told me ‘if I didn’t like the way it looked [the stitching of my vagina], because I wanted to get back into porn, he could do a corrective procedure for me.’ ”
Brock denied making such remarks, saying that “I would never say or imply that a patient could get ‘back into porn.’ ” He also said he had never been informed that any patient had asked for a chaperone due to comments on their body.
In her complaint, the patient wrote that she ultimately left the practice and sought care from another doctor who told her that Brock had stitched her labia minora together, leaving only a small opening for her vagina. Two years later, activities like using the bathroom, exercising and sexual intercourse remain painful as a result of the injury, she wrote in the complaint.
In a written response provided by his attorney, Brock said that while he could not speak definitely without being able to identify the patient and consult her record, he doubted the problems she described were caused by his suturing.
Dr. Sharon Winer, a gynecologist who has referred patients to Brock, called him “one of the best OBs that I’ve ever seen” and said that when it comes to healthcare, “you cannot take a single act or activity and take it out of medical context.”
His attorney also provided emails from former patients praising his care.
“He absolutely has a colorful personality, and can be direct to the point of possible offense … to those who don’t know or understand his sense of humor,” one wrote, but “when it comes down to his skill, his bedside manner, and his commitment to patients, he is UNMATCHED.”
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
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