By ERIK SCHELZIG
Associated Press

MURFREESBORO, Tenn. (AP) -- Next week's election can't come soon enough for Republican Scott DesJarlais, the freshman Republican congressman whose campaign has been rocked by revelations he dated patients and once urged one of them to seek an abortion.

MORE: TN GOP stands by Rep DesJarlais

The congressman has been largely absent from the campaign trail over the last three weeks since the first news reports about a recorded phone conversation between DesJarlais and a woman with whom he said he had a brief relationship as his first marriage was nearing its end in 2001.

The DesJarlais campaign staff this week has been publicly disputing unspecified portions of a Chattanooga Times Free Press report that quoted an unidentified woman as saying she had been a patient of the Jasper physician and had a six-month relationship with him before his divorce.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.