Two Maryland Doctors Lost Their Licenses Over Sexual Misconduct With Patients: What Those Patients Should Know

These two cases reached the Maryland State Board of Physicians by different roads. Dr. Ishtiaq Malik was tried and convicted of sex crimes against his patients, and under Maryland law a conviction for a crime of moral turpitude leaves the Board no choice but to revoke. Dr. James Roberson signed a consent order in which he gave up his license while the Board weighed discipline, after admitting under oath to sexual relationships with four patients and while denying the accounts of three others. The difference matters, and we keep it in view throughout. A criminal conviction is a finding of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. A consent order is a negotiated resolution, and the federal lawsuit now pending over one of these doctors contains allegations that have not been proven.

We write about these cases the way our firm reads any board order, looking for what the record establishes and what it only alleges. For the general background on when a medical provider's conduct becomes something a patient can act on, see our article on understanding medical malpractice and your rights as a patient. For the wider pattern of Maryland license actions this year, our article on six recent Maryland board actions, titled When Maryland Pulls a Medical License, walks through how discipline works in this state and where it stops short of helping the people who were hurt.

Dr. Malik ran Advanced Walk-In Urgent Care on Lockwood Drive in Silver Spring, in Montgomery County. He was the only provider listed on the sign outside. Patients came to a clinic like his for routine care, and they had no reason to expect what prosecutors described.

He was arrested in February 2023 on two counts of rape. After news of the arrest spread, more women came forward. By the summer of 2023, ten patients had accused him. Prosecutors told the court that during exams he locked the exam room door, did not give women gowns to cover themselves, put them in positions where they were afraid to protest, and groped them. The Montgomery County State's Attorney called him a danger to the community, and he was held without bond.

On January 26, 2024, a jury convicted him of two counts of second-degree rape and two counts of fourth-degree sex offense for assaults on two patients. Days later he entered an Alford plea to eight more counts of fourth-degree sex offense, one for each of eight additional women. An Alford plea lets a defendant maintain innocence while conceding the state has the evidence to convict, and Maryland treats it as a conviction. In August 2024 a judge sentenced him to 24 years in prison, a term the State's Attorney noted was above the Maryland sentencing guidelines, and ordered him to register as a sex offender after release.

Because those convictions stand, Maryland law left the Board no discretion. A conviction for a crime involving moral turpitude requires revocation, and on January 21, 2026, the Board revoked his Maryland medical license. For the women he assaulted, that revocation protects future patients. It does not pay for therapy, lost work, or the lasting damage of what happened in that exam room. Only a civil claim does that, and it runs on a deadline described near the end of this article.

Dr. Roberson is board-certified in internal medicine and rheumatology. He was first licensed in Maryland in 2008 and in Virginia in 2009, and at the relevant times he worked for a practice with offices in both states. The Board had warned him once before. According to its consent order, in December 2018 the Board sent him an advisory letter after a patient complained that he performed a breast exam with no chaperone in the room and none offered. The letter told him that conduct like that could be unprofessional conduct in the practice of medicine.

In October 2024 a patient told another physician that Dr. Roberson had touched her inappropriately during an exam and then asked whether he could perform oral sex on her. That physician reported it to the practice, which investigated and terminated him for cause. Once he was gone, more patients came forward, and the Board opened its own investigation and interviewed patients under oath.

The order describes what those patients testified to. One said he touched her breasts during a Maryland visit, then digitally penetrated her during a later visit at the Virginia office, and that his chart documented neither exam. Another described a breast exam that felt like a massage and was never documented. Dr. Roberson denied the accounts of those three patients. What he admitted, in his own sworn interview, was its own record. He told the Board he did not maintain appropriate boundaries and had, in his words, lost his way. He admitted romantic and sexual relationships with four other patients. The first sexual encounter with each of them, he said, happened in his office. He later saw two of them at their homes and met another at a hotel. He wrote no notes for those visits. He said the conduct began in 2022 and grew worse each year until the practice fired him.

The Board summarily suspended his Maryland license on October 1, 2025. His Virginia license was suspended as well. On February 2, 2026, through the consent order he signed, the Board permanently revoked his license to practice medicine in Maryland.

A doctor is not the only party a civil case can reach. News outlets including FOX 5 DC and The Daily Record have identified the practice that employed Dr. Roberson as MedStar Health, and in April 2026 a proposed federal class action was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland naming MedStar Health and Dr. Roberson. The lead plaintiff, identified as LaShawn Basham, sought care for a chronic autoimmune condition. The complaint alleges that MedStar failed to act on warning signs and allowed Dr. Roberson continued access to vulnerable patients, and it seeks damages on behalf of a class that counsel have estimated in the hundreds.

Those are allegations, and they have not been proven. Dr. Roberson denied the patient accounts he was questioned about, and MedStar has not been found liable for anything. We state that plainly. What the lawsuit illustrates is a question that medical sexual abuse cases often turn on. A practice, hospital, or health system can be liable for negligent hiring, supervision, or retention when it ignores warning signs about a provider. In the Roberson record the Board noted a 2018 advisory letter about an unchaperoned breast exam, years before the conduct that ended his career. What the employer knew, and when, becomes a central question in a civil case, and it is one reason an early look at the records matters.

The chart tells a story. In the Roberson record, the medical charts did not document the exams patients described, and some visits were never charted at all. Missing documentation is not proof of abuse by itself. It is often where the proof starts, because a note that should exist and does not is a fact a lawyer can build on.

Early warnings go unheeded. Dr. Roberson received a Board advisory letter in 2018, and the misconduct the Board later documented began around 2022 and escalated for two more years. Advisory letters are not public discipline, so patients had no way to know. That is exactly why the conduct of the institution that kept a provider in front of patients can become its own question.

One report can open the door. In the Roberson case a single patient spoke to a second physician, that physician reported it, the practice acted, and then others came forward. In the Malik case one arrest brought nine more women forward. Survivors often believe they are the only one. They rarely are.

A criminal case or a license revocation does not compensate anyone. Prison and revocation protect future patients. They do nothing to pay for counseling, lost income, or the lasting harm of a violation during care. Only a civil claim does that, and it runs on its own clock regardless of what the Board or a prosecutor does.

You have the right to a chaperone during any sensitive exam. You have the right to a gown and the privacy to undress. You have the right to ask why an exam is necessary and to stop it at any point. A breast, pelvic, or genital exam should never come as a surprise, and the reason for it should match the reason for your visit. When an exam does not fit why you came in, that mismatch is worth noticing. Maryland's own sexual misconduct rules for physicians, which the Board applied in the Roberson case, treat nonclinical touching of breasts or genitals and the failure to provide privacy for disrobing as misconduct.

If something felt wrong during a medical visit, trust that feeling. You can report it to the police, to the facility, and to the Maryland State Board of Physicians, and you can check any Maryland provider's license status and public orders through the Board's online Practitioner Profile system. Our article on how to check a surgeon's disciplinary record before surgery explains what those free public lookups do and do not reveal, and why checking every state where a provider has been licensed matters when a doctor practices across state lines, as Dr. Roberson did.

These cases do not fit neatly into ordinary malpractice law. A sexual assault during an exam can support a claim for battery, an intentional wrong, as well as a claim in negligence. Whether a particular claim must travel through Maryland's Health Care Alternative Dispute Resolution process, with its requirement of a certificate from a qualified medical expert, or can proceed as an ordinary tort, is a threshold question. The answer affects where the case is filed, whether an expert certificate is required, and whether Maryland's damages caps apply. These are questions to sort out early with a lawyer, not assumptions to make alone.

Claims may also reach past the individual doctor to the practice, hospital, or staffing company that employed him, under theories of negligent hiring, supervision, retention, or credentialing. And when a provider practices in more than one state, as Dr. Roberson did in Maryland and Virginia, the location of each visit can change which state's law, deadlines, and damage limits apply. A patient treated at the Virginia office may be governed by a different clock than one treated in Maryland. Our article on choosing a medical malpractice attorney covers what an honest early case review involves and what to look for.

Deadlines in these cases are strict, and waiting is the expensive mistake. Do not wait for a criminal appeal or a Board proceeding to finish before speaking with a lawyer. In Maryland a medical malpractice claim generally must be filed within five years of the injury or three years from when it was discovered, whichever comes first, with separate rules for children. Virginia runs on its own, generally shorter schedule. Those are outer walls, not goals. Evidence fades, witnesses move, and records are archived long before the last day on the calendar. Our article on the statute of limitations for medical malpractice explains how the start date is set and why it decides so many cases.

Where the care happened can change everything. A provider licensed in more than one state, who treated you near a state line or at an out-of-state office, may be governed by a different state's deadlines and procedures than you expect. If you traveled for care, do not assume you know which clock applies. The safe step is to ask early, while the answer can still help, rather than to assume you still have time.

National Malpractice Lawyers represents patients who were harmed by the people they trusted with their care. We handle these cases with discretion, we protect our clients' privacy, and we pursue both the provider and the institution that should have stopped him. We review medical malpractice and wrongful death matters nationwide, with a particular footprint across Virginia, D.C., and Maryland, and our consultations are free and confidential.

A records review costs nothing and commits you to nothing. You do not have to tell your story more than once to find out what your options are. If you or someone you love was sexually abused or violated by a doctor or other health care provider, the time to ask is now, while the deadline can still be met. If you are in immediate danger, call 911. Survivors of sexual assault can reach the RAINN National Sexual Assault Hotline at 800-656-4673, any time of day.