Brad,
You bring up some very good, just, and interesting points.
Personally speaking, and I am only speaking for myself here (disclaimer what I am about to say are my thoughts only, and reflect my thinking and feelings only, and that of no others are reflected or represented in the following statement) I honestly believe that what happened in our case was very very wrong. What happens between two adults, alert and oriented adults, on private property, after business hours, and behind locked doors is not anyone's business except of the people who happen to be there.
The whole thing boils down to boundary issues. Apparently I lost my right to consent on a personal level when I allowed him my consent to treat on a professional level as my doctor. Basically according to the board, in their eyes, doctors or any professional who treats a friend, or family member or a friend of a family member or anything of that nature is violating a boundary, this goes actually for husbands, wives and kids too. So your friend with whom you have discussed our case with who have expressed fear, have a very good reason to.
However with this being said, in the boards defence, these boundary issues/ethics/rules/guidelines or whatever you would like to call them are actually put in place to protect the person who has the license. Also, I might add here that sometimes when you do treat someone that you are close to or have feelings for other than doctor/patient, sometimes it is very possible to be too close to the situation and very possible to miss a diagnosis by either over diagnosing or under diagnosing.
Now, on the other hand, and again, this is just my two cents worth here, but I think we got slapped extra hard because of our personal situations. I feel that maybe we were more harshly judged because Doc and I are not the simple case of boy meets girl, boyfriend/girlfriend, we are both married to others and have been very open about being so. And, I feel that not everyone is quite as open minded about that sort of thing as others and that maybe, well, let's just leave it at that.
As to your other question about feeling like a hypocrite for not wanting to go to doctors? Well, yes and no. I do have white coat syndrome, so that is one reason I do not want to go to them. And yes, addmittingly so, another reason is because I have had quite a few pretty bad experiences with a few different doctors, and if you have read my posts or blogs, you know of them. Also, I have the knowledge to know right from wrong, and if I don't, Doc does, and if they won't answer to me, they will always answer to him. Some of the answers I have gotten have been down right pathetic. Like my GI doc wanting a barium enema done after my CT scan with contrast, and after a colonoscopy had already been done. I asked them why, because it wouldn't bring anything to the table that the other two didn't already show. Their answer was and I quote, "for completeness". Oh, that still cracks me up. My answer to them was, "well the last time I checked, completeness doesn't have an ICD-9 code". They went on to say something about me having top of the line insurance that would pay for it anyway. Well, not the answer I was looking for. So, it's things like this, and after receiving a copy of my chart from my doctors office and reading complete sets of vitals being done on every visit when none were taken, things like that that make me not want to go. They are correct when they say a little bit of knowledge can be dangerous, lol. It can be.
And as for your last sentence, "I want to say, good for him for picking you! That's very impressive." Truth is Brad, well, maybe you are right, maybe he did pick me. At the time I had a lot of men sending me messages wanting to get together and play. I was 38, a rogue female, openly wanting to play, a real nurse, you can just imagine, lol. But he was the only one who wrote me not wanting something from me, never mentioned sex, or play. My post was something about, "all I want for Christmas is....?" and I posted an anoscope. And a week or two later he wrote me back personally and asked me if I wanted a metal or a plastic one, he would be more than willing to send me one. And from that one email it started us on a journey over 5 years ago now that has taken us on the highest of highs, and to the lowest of lows. We have encountered hundreds of times more people wanting to break us up than to help keep us together. Only a select few really know our true and entire story, and sadly enough, half of those select few broke away, probably in their own fears, and we don't blame them, some of them because they realized that neither of us were going to budge from the other, then it left the very very few who decided that we were worth their time, their support, their help, and their friendship.
And that's where we are at today.
Mashie