An Irvine doctor who pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography could lose his medical license while behind bars, but the even more interesting thing about the 55-year-old is what a big deal physician he is.
Or was.
Robert H. Dolin, a UC Irvine medical school graduate, has been licensed to practice since 1988, doing so last at Kaiser Permanente in Anaheim, where he was the company's chief terminologist. That had him working with fellow physicians, insurers, medical billers, the federal Health and Human Services Agency and other professionals on “semantic interoperability,” or the accepted medical terms all entities use.
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Dolin left Kaiser in 2008 and later became chairman of the board of Health Level 7 (“the global authority on interoperability in health information technology with members in over 55 countries”) and president of Lantana Consulting Group (“a full-service consulting company well-positioned to help health care providers, government agencies and insurance providers achieve clinical information exchange.”) Here's Dolin being interviewed on camera about his role at Health Level 7 (HL7):
Neither company mentions Dolin's participation now, although I have not been able to confirm whether that has anything to do with what else he was also up to while with Kaiser. Routine monitoring of employee-assigned computers showed that on Dolin's two computers between January and April of 2008, more than 1,000 images of child pornography had been received.
“The images depicted the abuse of prepubescent children–often sadistically–in addition to images of infants, toddlers and preschool-aged children being sexually abused,” claimed the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), which had been contacted in March 2008 by Kaiser and worked with the healthcare company and the Orange County Child Exploitation Task Force on the probe of Dolin, whose Irvine home was searched and whose personal computers were seized. Later investigation determined the father of three children, all grown, had participated in online chats about child porn, according to HSI.
Dolin, who quickly resigned from Kaiser and joined the private sector when the probe against him was launched, cut a plea deal with the federal court in January that had him admitting to the HSI allegations. U.S. District Court Judge James Selna sentenced Dolin to 41 months in prison in June and ordered him to pay $8,000 restitution to a girl shown being molested by her father in pornography downloaded on the doctor's computer. Dolin must register as a sex offender for life. Wrote Selna in his sentencing memorandum, “possession of child pornography–especially material that involves prepubescent minor and masochistic or violent conduct–is a real crime with real victims. It is serious and it must be deterred.”
“This case is particularly egregious given that the defendant, a physician, had taken an oath to 'never do harm,'” reacted Claude Arnold, special agent in charge for HSI Los Angeles, about Dolin's conviction. “Instead he chose to hurt and exploit innocent and vulnerable children through his consumption of Internet child pornography.”
Years ago, watchdog The Kaiser Papers requested the Medical Board of California revoke Dolin's license–and complained about receiving no response.
Perhaps the state board was awaiting the conviction or Selna's sentence because, last week, it filed a petition seeking to revoke Dolin's license, citing a section of state law that prevents sex offender from having a medical license (with a few exceptions). The petition also maintains the nature of the conviction makes Dolin unfit to be a doctor.
If Dolin does not fight the petition, he could simply be stripped of his license. If he chooses to fight, an administrative law hearing would be scheduled under board rules.
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OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.