Bean-Bayog Speaks Out

Former Harvard Medical School (HMS)professor and psychiatrist Margaret H. Bean-Bayog '65 is fighting back three years after her career was shattered by charges of abusive malpractice.

Her bizarre Case has now become the focus of two books, both published last month, which debate the details of the 1992 suicide of one of her patients HMS student Paul Lozano.

Bean-Bayog recently broke her silence, and, according to the books, Breakdown and Obsession, she has a lot to explain.

In 1992, Lozano's family sued Bean-Bayog for wrongful death and malpractice. They claimed that Bean-Bayog had used regression therapy on the chronically-troubled Lozano.

The suit then claimed that she reduced him to the state of a dependent three-year-old and subjected him to her sexual fantasies. Ten months after Lozano stopped receiving treatment, he killed himself.

Bean-Bayog resigned her medical license in September of 1992 shortly after refusing a deal with the state medical board that would have suspended her for at least one year if she admitted wrongdoing.

Bean-Bayog's medical malpractice insurer settled the civil case out of court three months later.

Obsession's co-author, Gary S. Chafetz, was one of the original reporters to cover the lawsuit for The Boston Globe. In the book, Chafets gave his full support to Bean-Bayog.

"This [suit] was basically the job of a personal injury attorney and a grieving family that wanted to blame anybody but itself," Chafetz said in a phone interview yesterday. "Bean-Bayog became the victim of mass hysteria, of which I was a part."

Bean-Bayog said in an excerpt of Obsession, printed in the April issue of Boston Magazine, that she thought her unorthodox methods would help Lozano overcome his psychological problems.

"I thought that it would keep him quiet and alive," Bean-Bayog said. "So did he. And it did."

In the excerpt, Bean-Bayog emphasized her sense that she was abandoned by her Harvard colleagues when the scandal broke.

She pointed out that Harvard officials knew about her action while she was treating Lozano but immediately presumed her guilt when the charges surfaced against her.

"Harvard Medical School...positioned me to believe that I had a responsibility to take care of this guy," she said. "They knew about all the work I was doing with him."

Bean-Bayog criticized Harvard for cutting her off from the academic community of which she was a part for 20 years.

"The language that was used and the tone [of letters that Harvard sent her] were not very friendly or polite," she said.

"One would think that if you've had a faculty member for 20 years you might deserve a phone call."

Chafetz added that the other book written about the Bean-Bayog case, Breakdown, doesn't have a personal interview with the former doctor, and relies solely upon the Lozano family for information.

"The Lozano family says many contradictory things in statements to the press, Police and sworn statements," Chafetz said.

Breakdown was written by "fellow Globe reporter Eileen McNamara.

McNamara sides with the Lozano family in this version of the tale. McNamara could not be reached for comment yesterday.