Lawyer Andrew Slutkin praised Hopkins for a "prompt and thorough" response but also said the information in the letter raises new, troubling questions.

"Here you had a doctor in an open way, in a non-concealed way, using a pen camera," Slutkin said. "Why wasn't this discovered earlier? Why is it only discovered after he has hard drives and hard drives, and computer servers?"

He said "about a third" of the people who have contacted his law office have said that Levy conducted some exams without a staff member present. "Some patients even stopped seeing him because of that. That's the kind of thing we think allowed this practice to go on for so long."

Police have not said how far-reaching they believe the recording was or how long it had occurred.

Dori Henry, a spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, said there is no state requirement for another medical professional to be present as a "chaperone" during a gynecological exam, but it is recommended for the protection of both the patient and the physician. Some institutions and facilities establish their own policies requiring chaperones, she said.

Kim Hoppe, a Hopkins spokeswoman, said it is the institution's practice to have a chaperone present for all pelvic exams.

David Chelmow, chairman of the department of obstetrics and gynecology at Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center in Richmond, Va., said chaperones can help make patients more comfortable and speed along pelvic exams.

"There's certainly more of a consideration for male doctors, but I think in practice that many, if not most, [female doctors] would have chaperones present," Chelmow said.

A. Dwight Pettit, another attorney who said he has been fielding calls from Levy's patients, said his firm has heard many allegations — "about no staff being present, people being sent out of the [examination] rooms, people who have already been in for examination and supposed to be coming back for results of tests and being asked to disrobe a second time.">>