Complaints about doctor date to ‘94

Dr. William Fouche has said his downward spiral toward sexual deviancy began after his wife died in 2002, but according to a complaint filed this month by the Idaho Board of Medicine, Fouche is accused of improper conduct with his patients beginning in the mid-1990s.

The prominent Post Falls physician is accused by the state agency of conducting unnecessary breast and pelvic exams. Patients also complained that Fouche required them to undress for illnesses like the common cold and performed breast exams when a woman complained of a sprained ankle.

Fouche, 60, was sentenced last week to serve four years in prison for a felony charge of video voyeurism. He pleaded guilty to secretly videotaping women who used the guest bathroom at his riverfront home to change or shower. The victims included fellow church members, an underage foreign exchange student and the doctor’s relatives. Some were also his patients.

Nancy Kerr, executive director of the Idaho Board of Medicine, said her office began fielding complaints from Fouche’s patients about the same time last fall as criminal charges were filed against him. Fouche agreed to surrender his medical license in October 2004 pending the outcome of the criminal case, Kerr said, and an investigation by the Board of Medicine.

That investigation now complete, the board is seeking to officially suspend or revoke Fouche’s license. A hearing officer will be appointed and a hearing set to review the board’s investigation and recommendations.

Fouche’s attorney, James Siebe, said he didn’t think the complaint should be discussed publicly.

“Those are accusations,” Siebe said. “They’re not proven facts.”

The Board of Medicine’s allegations against Fouche involve seven young women and involve behavior from as far back as 1994 in one instance.

Fouche is alleged to have conducted improper or unnecessary breast and pelvic exams on six of the women. The complaint says that Fouche sometimes made no record of the visits on the patients’ charts or charge for the exams.

One woman complained that Fouche required her to undress for simple ailments like a cold when she visited his office in early 1994. Another said that Fouche did breast exams when she visited him for everything from a stomachache to a sprained ankle.

The Board of Medicine alleges that Fouche falsified that patient’s records to indicate that she was suffering from breast tenderness to justify the exams.

Four of the women complained that Fouche videotaped them while they were at his home – one woman said she was taped a dozen times.

The complaint alleges that Fouche’s conduct was “an abuse or exploitation” of a patient’s trust and that he used his position as a physician “to engage in improper, inappropriate, unprofessional and unethical sexual contact or conduct.”

The Board of Medicine’s complaint is the third case filed against the doctor in the past year. In addition to the criminal charges, to which he pleaded guilty, Fouche was also the defendant in a civil case filed by four of his victims.

One of those victims was a Guatemalan exchange student who was living at Fouche’s home. She was 17 and attending North Idaho College at the time Fouche taped her while she used the guest bathroom in his home to shower and change.

To settle the civil suit, Fouche sold his riverfront home in Post Falls.

Both Siebe and Fouche have said that the video voyeurism was a result of post-traumatic stress disorder brought on by the death of Fouche’s wife, Colleen, and from Fouche’s experiences as a Navy SEAL during Vietnam.

Several military groups questioned whether Fouche actually served as a Navy SEAL after the publication of an article last week on the doctor’s criminal sentencing. VeriSEAL, a custodian of the complete historical database of Navy SEALs, said that there was no record of a William Minor Fouche having been a Navy SEAL.

There was, however, a record of a William Minor Fooshee having served during Vietnam as a Navy SEAL.

According to Fouche’s attorney, the men are one and the same.

Siebe said the family name was traditionally spelled “Fouche,” but at some point in Fouche’s lineage the spelling was altered by relatives wanting to disassociate themselves from their French heritage.

Fouche was born Fooshee, but Siebe said that after medical school, Fouche changed his name to the traditional spelling.