A physician’s right to express personal opinions does not displace the professional obligations that come with the privilege of practising medicine. Where a physician’s online conduct misleads patients and the public about clinical matters, breaches the confidentiality of regulatory proceedings, or compromises the witnesses on whom the regulatory process depends, the CPSO has the authority to discipline. In the most serious cases, the discipline is revocation.
College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario v Phillips, 2023 ONPSDT 16, is one such case. The Ontario Physicians and Surgeons Discipline Tribunal revoked the certificate of registration of Dr. Patrick Brian Phillips, a family and emergency medicine physician practising in Northern Ontario, for a combination of online misinformation about COVID-19, public sharing of confidential CPSO investigative information that led to witness harassment, multiple clinical practice deficiencies, and failure to cooperate with the regulatory process.
Dr. Phillips did not contest the findings of professional misconduct or incompetence. The penalty was revocation of his certificate of registration and $6,000 in costs.
The findings
The OPSDT made detailed findings across four areas: online misinformation, witness intimidation, clinical practice, and engagement with the regulatory process.
Online misinformation about COVID-19 and public health
The Tribunal found that Dr. Phillips used social media to undermine public confidence in measures taken to address the COVID-19 pandemic and to deter the public from complying with public health measures. The findings included statements:
- Asserting that government, public health authorities, and other institutions were lying to the public and acting from improper financial motives
- Comparing public health measures during the pandemic to residential schools, with claims that the intent was to cause and conceal children’s deaths, and that the measures constituted “ritualized child abuse”
- Comparing public health measures to Nazi policies and to thalidomide
- Asserting that the CPSO should not be trusted because it relied on propaganda rather than science, and that the restrictions the CPSO had imposed on him were a “badge of honour”
The Tribunal also found that Dr. Phillips made misleading and incorrect statements about COVID-19 vaccines. The findings included statements that the vaccines did not prevent infection or transmission, and that the original vaccine trials had not examined serious adverse events such as hospitalizations or deaths.
Public statements of these kinds, made by a physician, are not just personal expressions of opinion. They are professional communications by a person identified as a regulated health professional, and the public reasonably treats them as carrying the authority of that professional position. The CPSO’s policy framework around physician communications during the pandemic recognized that authority and the corresponding responsibility for accuracy.
Witness intimidation
A more procedurally serious finding concerned Dr. Phillips’s sharing of confidential investigative information from the CPSO. He published online the names, contact information, and other identifying details of two witnesses. The witnesses were then harassed online.
When Dr. Phillips refused to remove the information voluntarily, the College sought and obtained an order of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice in January 2022 requiring removal. The fact that court intervention was necessary to remediate the disclosure is itself notable; the regulator’s own authority did not produce compliance.
Witness intimidation in the regulatory context is distinct from, and more serious than, simple non-cooperation with an investigation. Where a physician under investigation actively weaponizes their audience against the people on whom the investigation depends, the protective function of the regulatory framework is compromised in a way that goes beyond the individual case. Other potential witnesses, observing what happened, may decline to come forward. The Tribunal’s emphasis on this aspect of the conduct reflects that broader concern.
Clinical practice deficiencies
The OPSDT also made findings about Dr. Phillips’s clinical practice, separate from the speech and witness conduct. The findings included:
- Treatment orders that were identical across multiple patients, were based on incomplete documentation, and in at least one case were contraindicated
- Vaccine exemption notes that were factually incorrect and based on erroneous criteria
- Communications to colleagues and patients that COVID-19 vaccines were unsafe and that ivermectin was a useful drug for the treatment and prevention of COVID-19
- Interference with the testing of a child for COVID-19
- Deficits in documentation and in understanding of the eligibility criteria for COVID-19 vaccines
These clinical findings supported the incompetence finding under the Health Professions Procedural Code. The Tribunal’s reasoning at paragraph 30:
Dr. Phillips’ professional care of patients displayed a lack of knowledge, skill or judgment, particularly in respect of his treatment orders, which were identical for multiple patients, were based on incomplete documentation, and in at least one case, were contraindicated. His vaccine exemption notes were misleading and based on erroneous criteria. The deficiencies were to an extent that demonstrates that he is unfit to continue to practise or that his practice should be restricted.
Failure to cooperate and breach of the ICRC order
The OPSDT also found that Dr. Phillips had failed to cooperate with the CPSO’s investigation and had breached the terms of an Inquiries, Complaints and Reports Committee (ICRC) order. These findings parallel the duty-to-cooperate framework engaged in CPSO v Luchkiw.
Misconduct and incompetence
The findings collectively supported both professional misconduct (under O. Reg. 856/93) and incompetence (under the Code itself). The misconduct findings rested on the disgraceful, dishonourable, or unprofessional standard, on inappropriate communications, on disclosure of confidential investigative information, and on breach of the ICRC order. The incompetence finding rested on the documented deficiencies in clinical practice as articulated at paragraph 30.
The two-track structure (misconduct plus incompetence) parallels the structure in CPSO v Kadri, where similar dual findings supported revocation.
The “no contest” framing and the penalty
Dr. Phillips did not contest the findings of misconduct and incompetence. The procedural significance is that the OPSDT did not need to determine, on the merits, whether the conduct met the regulatory standards. That had been agreed.
What the OPSDT had to determine was the appropriate penalty. Where a physician acknowledges responsibility for the conduct that led to discipline, that acknowledgement can be a mitigating factor at the penalty stage. But the framework established in Hill and applied in Kadri makes clear that mitigating factors do not automatically displace revocation where the conduct is serious enough and where insight is otherwise absent.
In Dr. Phillips’s case, the conduct was serious (online misinformation reaching a wide audience, weaponization of that audience against actual witnesses, clinical practice deficiencies including contraindicated treatment orders) and the absence of insight was demonstrated by his own characterization of the CPSO’s restrictions as a “badge of honour.”
The OPSDT revoked his certificate of registration and ordered him to pay $6,000 in costs. The relatively modest cost award (compared with the $250,510 in Kadri or the $94,960 in Trozzi) likely reflects that the case did not require an extended contested hearing.
The doctrinal context
Phillips is part of the body of CPSO discipline jurisprudence developed during and after the COVID-19 pandemic, alongside Trozzi, Luchkiw, and others. Each case engaged different aspects of the regulatory framework:
- Trozzi and Luchkiw turned in significant part on duty-to-cooperate and ungovernability findings; Trozzi ended in revocation, Luchkiw in suspension
- Phillips addressed online speech and witness intimidation alongside clinical deficiencies, with both misconduct and incompetence findings supporting revocation
- Kadri (a non-COVID case) applied the Hill framework on insight and remediation in the context of a model-of-care dispute, with similar dual findings producing revocation
The cases collectively establish that revocation is a real and recurring outcome where the conduct is serious and where the physician shows no insight or willingness to change. They also establish that the regulator’s authority extends beyond clinical conduct narrowly defined: physician speech that misleads patients about clinical matters, conduct that compromises the integrity of the regulatory process, and refusal to cooperate with investigations are all within the regulatory scope.
Why this case matters
For patients. Phillips is an example of how the regulatory framework responds to physician conduct that combines online misinformation, witness intimidation, and clinical practice deficiencies. Patients who experience or observe physician conduct of these kinds can raise concerns with the CPSO; the regulatory framework is structured to address them.
For physicians. The case is a reminder that the privilege of practising medicine carries professional obligations that follow the physician beyond the consulting room. Online communications about clinical matters are professional communications, not just personal expressions, and are subject to the same standards of accuracy and care that apply within the consulting room. Conduct that compromises the regulatory process, particularly conduct that exposes witnesses to harassment, is a separate and serious form of misconduct that can support revocation independent of any clinical findings.
For regulators and counsel. Phillips illustrates the regulator’s response to witness intimidation in a public-facing form. The need to seek a Superior Court order to remediate the disclosure is itself a useful precedent: where a physician under investigation publishes confidential information that places witnesses at risk, the College has the standing and the will to seek prompt court intervention. Counsel for physicians under investigation should be alive to the legal exposure that follows from such conduct, both within the regulatory framework and in the courts.
For more on how the CPSO complaints process works from a patient perspective, see Should I File a CPSO Complaint Against My Doctor? For other CPSO discipline decisions in the regulatory cluster, see CPSO v Stein: A Boundary Violation and an Attempted Cover-Up, CPSO v Luchkiw: The Duty to Cooperate with a College Investigation, and CPSO v Kadri: Disruptive Conduct, Incompetence, and the Limits of Remediation. For an overview of the COVID-19 discipline penalty decisions, see CPSO v Trozzi, Luchkiw: Two Penalty Decisions from COVID-19. For the broader landscape of complaints and reviews available to Ontario patients, see A Patient’s Guide to Making Complaints About Health Care in Ontario.
Decision Date: July 14, 2023
Tribunal: Ontario Physicians and Surgeons Discipline Tribunal
Citation: College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario v Phillips, 2023 ONPSDT 16 (CanLII)
