Dr. Michael Roy Sharpe’s official record is clean.
There’s just one page in his public file at the Alabama State Board of Medical Examiners, which notes that he voluntarily surrendered his medical license in 2009 while under investigation by the Board. No other details.
But a quick internet search would tell you that 2009 is the year that Sharpe, a 63-year-old Guntersville pediatrician, admitted he’d had sex on multiple occasions with his 15-year-old female patient. You’d see that during the Board’s investigation – the one mentioned in his public file – he’d shown Board members his cell phone, where he kept nude pictures of the girl.
You’d also find, thanks to media reports, that his work history had red flags dating back to the 1990s. Before he set up shop as a pediatrician in Alabama, he’d been fired from at least two hospitals in Tennessee, according to federal court records, for inappropriately touching female patients.
In 2010, he pled guilty to a federal charge of possession of child pornography, stemming from his relationship with his patient, and is now on the state sex offender registry. He faced state charges of rape and sodomy, which were later dropped after his patient died unexpectedly.
There are roughly 16,000 doctors with active medical licenses in Alabama. And yet there’s no way for the public to know how many – or which ones – are under investigation by the Board of Medical Examiners. State law forbids it.