Japanese doctor arrested for photographing nude patients

By Ryann Connell
March 19, 2005

She thought something was amiss when the doctor told her to strip naked -- she only had a painful chest. Still, her physician was one of the most famous in Japan, so she assumed he knew what he was doing.

She even went along when he told her to get on all fours and crawl. And she still didn't complain when the doctor pulled out a digital camera and began taking photos. But she knew something was really wrong when she wasn't charged for the examination.

Sadao Tanabe, the renowned cardiologist from posh government-run Bokuto Hospital who probed the young woman, was arrested on March 10, Shukan Jitsuwa notes.

"Loads of filthy photos were found on the personal computer seized from the doctor's home. He'd downloaded most of them from adult sites. But there were also photos of about 20 naked women. They were nearly all in their 20s or 30s and there was about 10 shots of each of them," a police investigation source tells Shukan Jitsuwa. "The photos were of women standing up, lying down, crawling on all fours. The ones on all fours were most frequent. The cameras were taken at all different angles, from the side, from behind, whatever. I don't care how famous a doctor he was supposed to have been, I can't believe he had the temerity to take photos like these."

Tanabe is accused of taking shots of a 31-year-old woman who sought treatment from him in July last year. She explains what happened.

"There was no nurse around and when he told me he wanted to do an ultrasound, I thought it was a bit weird. We went to a room the doctor called an examination room, but the only thing in there was a basket in which I could put my clothes. The doctor came in and told me to strip naked. He's a really important doctor, so I didn't argue. As soon as I had removed everything, he took a little digital camera out of the pocket of his white coat and began taking pictures of me," the woman tells Shukan Jitsuwa. "First he photographed me standing up, then he told me to lie down, then to get on all fours. He took about four or five shots with each different pose. When he'd finished taking photos, I asked him why he'd done it. He told me he was going to use them as a reference for the ultrasound results."

When the woman received a bill for the treatment she'd undergone, she noticed something was fishy, as she had not been charged for an ultrasound. She called Tanabe's hospital to ask what was going on. Hospital officials looked into the case and decided that the cardiologist had "acted inappropriately."

Starting in about February this year, growing numbers of women complained to Bokuto Hospital, the institution where Tanabe works, that photos had been taken of them in the nude. Police looked into the claims and so far Tanabe has been charged with six counts of taking indecent photographs. More complaints are expected.

Tanabe denies the allegations.

"These photos aren't indecent," the weekly quotes Tanabe telling the police. "I needed them for reference purposes."

His employers are not convinced.

"It's unfortunate this type of doctor exists," a Bokuto spokesman tells Shukan Jitsuwa. "We deeply apologize."

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