A Maine plastic surgeon was ordered by regulators to undergo a psychiatric and substance use evaluation last Tuesday after another case of sexual misconduct with a female patient.
Dr. Anthony Perrone, who until recently practiced at Skin Medical Aesthetics in Windham, was ordered to undergo treatment after the Maine Board of Licensure in Medicine got a complaint in May that he had a nearly six-month sexual relationship with a client while she received Botox injections at the office starting last fall.
It is against board policy for physicians to engage in sexual conduct with patients. But Perrone has been cited twice before by regulators for violating ethical boundaries, according to documents from Maine and Massachusetts.
He agreed to not practice medicine in Massachusetts in 2014 after having cyber sex with a patient, although his license there was not formally revoked until 2017. By then, he had already been working at MaineGeneral Medical Center in Augusta for three years.
Perrone was fired from the Augusta hospital in 2017 for giving false information during an investigation and defense of a civil suit filed against the hospital after he had a romantic relationship with a coworker, according to a 2019 agreement with the board.
The hospital declined to comment on Perrone’s hiring or firing beyond confirming he no longer worked there. He opened the Windham practice by late 2018, according to The Windham Eagle.
That agreement required Perrone to undergo boundary training, therapy and have a chaperone present when he saw a patient. He successfully completed the training and appeared to be improving by the time the board terminated his therapy requirement in October 2021.
By this year, the patient told the board no one was ever present in the room while they received care. She told the board that Perrone “was very good at manipulating me” and made her feel bad for him because of losing his Massachusetts license.
Perrone did not respond to phone calls requesting comment. While the board investigates Perrone, its recent action notes he may be unable to practice medicine due to mental illness, drug or alcohol use or as a result of a mental or physical condition.
It notes Perrone had canceled a prior psychiatric evaluation and felt able to return to work. While he cannot do so until at least 2023 in Maine because the board switched his license to inactive status following the complaint, Perrone intends to seek work in other states, the board said.
Information about cases before the Maine board are confidential. But Executive Director Dennis Smith said the board had reported its action to the Federation of State Medical Boards and the National Practitioner Data Bank. The former sends out alerts to state licensing medical boards when doctors are disciplined, while the latter is accessible to health care entities.
“To the extent that Dr. Perrone seeks to obtain a medical license in another jurisdiction, the [order] is available to that licensing jurisdiction,” he said.