Boston Partner Joe Flanagan successfully appealed the summary suspension of a physician’s license by the Board of Registration in Medicine. Our client was the attending hospitalist for a female patient admitted for chest pain. She sent him a Facebook message on the evening of her discharge and he promptly responded. They began a week-long affair the next day. When he broke off the relationship she filed a complaint with the Board. The Board found that he violated AMA standards and suspended his license. The Division of Administrative Law Appeals recently disagreed. The judge found that the patient, not the doctor, initiated the relationship outside the hospital, and that the doctor did nothing to exploit his position as her physician.