GRAND FORKS (AP) - An oral surgeon is facing a six-month suspension for inappropriately touching four female patients.

The state Board of Dental Examiners unanimously voted Wednesday to suspend the license of Dr. Greg Frokjer for six months. The board also decided Frokjer should pay legal costs and take a course to help him be more sensitive to issues involving female patients.

The board's president, Dr. Jay Taylor, of Fargo, called it an unprecedented case.

The seven-member board unanimously rejected an administrative law judge's recommendation that the complaints against Frokjer be dropped.

The board's decision will be put in final form by its attorney before the board meets for a final vote on the punishment. Then Frokjer and his attorneys will consider whether to ask the board to reconsider or whether to appeal in state district court, said William Michael Jr., one of Frokjer's attorneys.

"We don't think anything inappropriate happened," Michael said.

"We are very disappointed that the board, after asking for a determination of an (administrative law judge) … disregarded it," said Kerry Rosenquist, a Grand Forks attorney also representing Frokjer.

The case dates to allegations made last year to the board about four separate incidents of alleged inappropriate sexual touching by Frokjer.

In July, administrative law Judge Allen Hoberg recommended the board dismiss the allegations and take no action against Frokjer. Hoberg said Frokjer had conducted necessary presurgical examinations, and said the women's complaints were based on confusion related to sedatives and ignorance of medical procedures.

On Wednesday, Taylor and other board members agreed the four women's testimony was more credible than Frokjer's.

"We have four - not one, not two, but four - young ladies who all believe they were touched in a sexual fashion," Taylor said. "Four people who didn't know each other."

Frokjer testified in May that for certain procedures, he had to check the patient's pulse at an artery at the groin, and check lymph nodes in the breasts of patients.

While Frokjer is trained to do such exams, the women's testimony that they did not seem appropriate was more compelling than Frokjer's, which at times conflicted with his report made at the time of the exam, Taylor and other board members said.

Frokjer has seen more than 50,000 patients in his career - most of them in his office, but about 600 in Altru Hospital, where the four women who filed complaints underwent procedures, board members said.