A former Columbus doctor could lose his license as the Ohio State Medical Board investigates allegations that he repeatedly assaulted patients under his care for more than a decade.

Dr. David Joseph Wenzke is a gastroenterologist who works for Gastro Health in Blue Ash, which has been licensed in Ohio since 2004. He is accused of inappropriately touching multiple patients, according to medical board files. The identities of the alleged victims are being withheld from the records to protect their medical confidentiality.

Wenzke could not be reached for comment. His attorney, Jason T. Gerkin of Columbus, said in an email to The Enquirer that Wenzke “strongly denies the allegations and looks forward to presenting his case to the board.”

“Preying On Patients”, a Dispatch investigation published in 2023revealed that doctors accused of sexual abuse are not so unusual.

From 1980 to 2022, at least 256 Ohio doctors faced disciplinary action for sexual misconduct. Of those doctors, 199 sexually abused or harassed 449 patients, The Dispatch revealed.

These figures do not include an unknown number of victims who never came forward or complaints which in the past were not fully investigated.

What are the charges against Wenzke?

Allegations against Wenzke began in 2011, with the most recent in the spring of 2023. Most of the complaints were filed while he was working at Ohio Gastroenterology Group Inc. in Columbus. The complaints led to him losing his clinical privileges in June 2017, followed by his termination. Landed a job at Gastro Health in late 2020.

Gastro Health spokeswoman Shannon Zemantauski said the practice was caught off guard by the allegations that predate Wenzke’s employment there. She said the practice did its due diligence when hiring him, even interviewing three former colleagues, but the complaints filed against the doctors are notoriously difficult to follow.

“After notification of the investigation, Dr. Wenzke has been suspended immediately and is not currently involved in patient care at Gastro Health,” the practice said in an emailed statement to The Enquirer. “The health and safety of our patients is always our top priority.”

According to medical board records, patients complained that Wenzke:

• He touched a female patient’s genitals without gloves during an exam in March 2011.

• He touched and squeezed a patient’s breasts while she was sedated for a colonoscopy, then inserted his fingers into her vagina after the procedure in February 2012.

• I changed a teenage patient’s gown while he was alone in June 2017.

• He spent more time applying lubricant and removing lubricant from female patients compared to male patients.

• He began treating a co-worker, for whom he bought alcohol in March 2023, and began kissing her while she was “intoxicated and almost asleep” until her husband arrived to drive her home.

• He was the subject of an internal investigation from March to May 2023 related to his sexual interaction with a patient, which resulted in Wenzke being retrained on Gastro Health’s harassment policies and its Code of Conduct.

• The adjusted chest commonly leads to looking at the breasts of sedated patients when it was not medically necessary.

Wenzke was formally notified by the medical board last month that it was considering whether to limit, revoke or suspend his license. Wenzke, whose current license is set to expire in October 2025, is scheduled to face the board in late June for a hearing.

This article originally appeared on the Cincinnati Enquirer: The former Columbus doctor has been suspended as the medical board investigates misconduct