Maj. Blaine McGraw has been charged on more than 50 counts of secretly recording dozens of women he saw as patients at Carl R. Darnall Army Medical Center on Fort Hood. (Bell County (Texas) Sheriff’s Office)
AUSTIN, Texas — Multiple women have filed legal documents in the past week alleging they were secretly recorded or given unnecessary medical exams by an Army doctor outside the scope of criminal charges that only include misconduct at Fort Hood.
One woman who saw Maj. Blaine McGraw, an OB-GYN, while he was assigned to Tripler Army Medical Center in Hawaii, said he performed numerous breast exams on her during appointments “when there was no medical reason,” according to an administrative claim filed Monday along with those of six other women represented by attorney Christine Dunn.
“During my appointments with him, Dr. McGraw’s phone was often visible in his pocket,” according to the claim. “I have photos and videos from these visits that show Dr. McGraw’s phone in his front pocket.”
McGraw, 47, was charged last week with 54 counts of indecent visual recording involving 44 women, according to the Army. All but one of those women were patients he provided medical care to this year at Carl R. Darnall Army Medical Center at Fort Hood. One woman was recorded at an off-post home.
He moved from Hawaii to Texas in August 2023, according to the Army. He served in Hawaii beginning in June 2019 as an intern and then as a resident. Before attending medical school to become an OB-GYN, McGraw was a physician assistant at Fort Campbell, Ky.
The Army has said it has notified roughly 1,100 patients who saw McGraw in Hawaii but has not yet said if any of its criminal or administrative investigations include what may have occurred or been reported during the doctor’s time at Tripler.
Officials at Fort Hood said the hospital suspended McGraw immediately upon hearing allegations of misconduct Oct. 17, and a criminal investigation began within hours.
A lawsuit first filed by one woman in Bell County, Texas, court last month claimed that women had reported McGraw at Tripler but that nothing was done. Last week attorney Andrew Cobos amended the lawsuit to include an additional 81 women.
One of those women said that McGraw unnecessarily induced labor against her wishes during an exam at Tripler.
“McGraw expressed that she looked good this late into her pregnancy and began asking questions about how she felt. McGraw stated that his afternoon calendar was free and offered to conduct a pelvic exam,” according to the lawsuit.
After inducing labor without a documented appointment, McGraw asked the patient to leave post and then send him a text message “letting him know that her water had broken and that she needed to see him for delivery.”
Of the seven women Dunn represents, three of the women filed claims because of improper recording of exams while the other four regard unnecessary medical exams “that were much more a sexual assault than a medical exam,” the attorney said.
Dunn submitted the claims on behalf of civilian women and service members through the Federal Tort Claims Act, the law that allows people to take legal action against the federal government for negligence. It is a required step toward a lawsuit against the government.
Each woman requested $8 million in damages, according to filings.
The process to file administrative claims can be long. The Army has six months to investigate, Dunn said. However, she also represents 45 victims of Maj. Michael Stockin, who was convicted of sexual abuse of patients earlier this year at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington.
Those claims are still pending, and Stockin was removed from seeing patients in 2022 and charged in August 2023.
“It often takes a lot longer, especially when there’s a criminal case,” Dunn said. “These cases are considered individually, but they’re also considered collectively. And there are a lot of victims out there in this case.”
