A physician working at a pain clinic at MaineGeneral Medical Center’s Waterville campus in the summer of 2012 has lost his license to practice medicine because of inappropriate conduct with four women there, all of whom filed lawsuits over it.

The women sued Dr. Mohammad Aljanaby, the hospital and a staffing agency in Kennebec County Superior Court, and those cases were settled at mediation late last month.

The dismissals of three lawsuits were filed Jan. 20; one remains, pending a dismissal.

No details of the settlement were available in the court documents or from attorneys, so it was unclear whether any of the women received the damages they sought.

Attorneys Sumner Lipman and Caleb Gannon filed the civil lawsuits, which became public in June 2015, on behalf of the plaintiffs. At the time, the plaintiffs were a 53-year-old woman from Augusta, a 52-year-old woman from Avon, a 36-year-old woman from Wilton and her 55-year-old mother, who lives in the Oxford County town of Mexico.

The Kennebec Journal’s policy is not to publish identities of victims of alleged sexual assaults.

Gannon and Stephen C. Smith, another attorney at Lipman Katz, both said this week they had “no comment” on the settlement.

In the Maine lawsuits, Aljanaby was represented by attorney Daniel Gibson, who said Friday he had to reserve comment until he checked with his client. Gibson did not provide any response on behalf of Aljanaby as of Friday afternoon, and a woman at a West Hartford, Connecticut, medical office listed as one of Aljanaby’s locations, took a message for Aljanaby, saying she would pass it to the office manager.

Attorney Jennifer Rush, who represented the hospital, said in an email Friday, “We have achieved closure and resolution in this case. For MGMC, this means it will continue to place its energy, focus and resources on providing the highest quality of care to its patients.”

In the statement forwarded through the hospital, Rush added, “All staff work tirelessly to improve care and avoid risk to patients, and we respond appropriately to patient concerns as soon as we are aware of them.”

Aljanaby, of Bristol, Connecticut, trained as a physical medicine and rehabilitation specialist. He was hired for a temporary, six-week assignment, from July 16, 2012, to Aug. 30, 2012, in a pain clinic at the hospital.

In the court complaints, the women said Aljanaby held them close to his body, sometimes caressing them under their clothing or after having them disrobe, and in several instances kissed them and viewed or touched their genitals, all without their permission, while he was supposed to be treating them at the clinic.

The complaints say the hospital and Vista Staffing Solutions Inc., of Salt Lake City, Utah, were negligent in supervising the doctor in his interactions with patients and in checking his credentials. The staffing agency was dismissed as a defendant prior to the case going to mediation.

Aljanaby received a temporary license to practice medicine in Maine, but the Maine Board of Licensure in Medicine later refused to grant his application for a permanent license.

Aljanaby’s license to practice medicine and surgery in his home state was revoked Nov. 15, 2016, by the Connecticut Medical Examining Board after a hearing that Aljanaby did not attend.

The board found that Aljanaby “engaged in inappropriate physical and/or sexual conduct with one or more female patients in about August 2012 while working as a physician at MaineGeneral Medical Center in Waterville and that such conduct constitutes illegal conduct in the practice of medicine.”

The board also concluded Aljanaby lied on his August 2014 license renewal application when he indicated no disciplinary action was pending or was taken against him in another state.

In fact, it notes that the Maine Board of Licensure in Medicine notified him several times in 2013 and 2014 that it had a disciplinary complaint pending against him and that Maine denied him permanent licensure on the basis of incompetence, unprofessional conduct and sexual misconduct.

In the October 2014 letter to Aljanaby, the Maine Board of Licensure formally denied his application for a permanent license to practice in Maine, citing “information received from MaineGeneral Medical Center reporting alleged incidents of unprofessional conduct involving female patients” during his temporary assignment at the hospital, as well as a failure to pass a step of the United States Medical Licensing Examination within three attempts.

In its decision, the Connecticut regulatory board wrote, “The board also finds that the respondent poses a threat, in the practice of medicine, to health and safety.”

Aljanaby, who had been licensed in Connecticut since 2004, did not respond to notices about the complaints or the hearing that the board sent to various places, including locations in Ridgewood, New York, as well as Bristol, Connecticut.

Betty Adams — 621-5631

badams@centralmaine.com

Twitter: @betadams

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