At least one of the reviews remains online at RateMDs.com. A representative of the website did not respond to a request for comment.
One review that the doctor believed was posted by Mr. Kurson included a photograph taken inside a Mount Sinai waiting room, the two people said. Mr. Kurson was recorded by surveillance cameras at the hospital around the time that photo was taken, the two people said.
That same month, the wife of the doctor’s boss received emails from someone she believed to be Mr. Kurson. The emails made unsubstantiated allegations about the doctor and her boss, and his wife regarded them as a form of harassment, according to a person familiar with the emails and documents reviewed by The Times. The doctor’s boss reported those emails to Mount Sinai officials.
After the doctor told the hospital that she feared for her safety, Mount Sinai beefed up security in the hospital waiting room. It also arranged for the doctor to be accompanied to and from work and offered to find her temporary housing, the two people said.
The hospital retained K2 Intelligence, a private investigations firm, to help deal with the situation, according to three people familiar with the assignment. After that, the alleged harassment ceased, two of the people said.
A K2 spokeswoman said the company “does not discuss the nature or results of any client matters.”
This spring, Mr. Kurson — who a year earlier had joined Teneo, a public-relations and consulting firm — was poised to get a seat on the board of the National Endowment for the Humanities, which distributes more than $100 million a year to American museums, libraries, universities, public broadcasters, individual scholars and others. The endowment has been a target of Republican attacks, and Mr. Trump last year proposed eliminating it.
The endowment’s 26-member board, the National Council on the Humanities, consists largely of academics, authors, and leaders of museums, libraries and other cultural institutions. The job of council members is to advise the endowment’s chairman and make recommendations on grant applications. Members serve six-year terms and receive nominal compensation.
