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Bean-Bayog Offers Up License

Medical Board Calls Action Invalid; Hearing to Go Ahead Monday

Dr. Margaret Bean-Bayog '65, the Harvard Medical School psychiatrist accused of having an affair with a student and driving him to suicide, voluntarily surrendered her medical license yesterday.

But attorney Andrew C. Meyer Jr., who represents the family of deceased medical student Paul Lozano, said last night that the Board of Registration in Medicine had not accepted her action.

Bean-Bayog's action would have avoided further public scrutiny in a state hearing scheduled for Monday. Her attorney, Michael L. Blau, asked the board in a separate letter yesterday to either accept her decision or resolve the case without a hearing.

Meyer said that Bean-Bayog's letter to the Board contained too many "self-serving statements" which precluded acceptance, and that the hearing would go forward as planned Monday.

Bean-Bayog is scheduled to go before the Division of Law Appeals, an independent state agency that would have determined whether or not she should keep her license to practice medicine.

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The psychiatrist wrote her decision to the Medical Board, saying that she wanted to avoid further attacks. The hearing was to be held in a State House auditorium, carried by cable television and attended by members of the national press corps. Blau told the Associated Press yesterday that the hearing was designed to make "a public spectacle."

"To avoid this assault, I realize that I am electing an outcome that is far more severe than would ever have been imposed on me through a hearing process," Bean-Bayog wrote.

Without a medical license, Bean-Bayog would no longer be able to prescribe medicine, but could still practice psychotherapy.

Medical School student Paul Lozano killed himself with a cocaine injection in Texas in April 1991, three months before he would have graduated. He had sought Bean-Bayog's psychiatric counseling while a medical student.

In September, Lozano's family alleged that Bean-Bayog had seduced him during treatment after regressing him to infancy. They claimed that her "regression therapy" depressed him to the point of suicide.

Bean-Bayog has repeatedly denied charges that she used inappropriate treatment methods or had sex with her patient. She instead said in court papers that Lozano "harbored homicidal, violent and delusional thoughts" and that "many psychiatrists would not have even attempted to treat him."

Meyer said that the Lozanos had heard of Bean-Bayog's decision and were standing by the Board's rejection of her letter.

Since the Bean-Bayog case broke last semester, it has garnered national media attention. Lurid details of Bean-Bayog's case notes filed in court by Lozano's family, some containing the psychiatrist's sexual fantasies, became the focus of news reports nationwide.

Harvard had placed the psychiatrist on administrative leave and removed her name fromreferral lists on May 1, after numerous complaintswere filed by the Lozano family and thepsychiatrist who assumed his treatment after heterminated therapy with Bean-Bayog.

This story was compiled with wire servicereports.

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