Professional misconduct is the legal finding under Ontario’s regulatory framework that a regulated health professional has engaged in conduct prohibited by the relevant college’s regulations. For physicians, the governing instruments are the Health Professions Procedural Code (Schedule 2 to the Regulated Health Professions Act, 1991), the Medicine Act, 1991, and Ontario Regulation 856/93, which lists the specific acts that constitute professional misconduct.
Findings of professional misconduct are made by the Ontario Physicians and Surgeons Discipline Tribunal after a hearing. The range of conduct that can support a finding is broad and includes incompetence, sexual abuse of a patient, falsifying records, billing fraud, breaches of patient confidentiality, conduct that would reasonably be regarded as disgraceful, dishonourable or unprofessional, and failures of supervision or delegation. Penalties on a finding can range from a reprimand to permanent revocation of the certificate of registration.
Posts tagged Professional Misconduct analyze recent findings against Ontario physicians, with attention to the specific clinical or non-clinical conduct at issue, the regulatory provisions engaged, and the penalty imposed.
Ontario discipline tribunal revokes psychiatrist’s licence for issuing over 1,400 COVID exemption letters for profit, with dual misconduct and incompetence findings.
OPSDT accepts joint submission for permanent resignation after physician surreptitiously drugged a patient/employee with Rohypnol and Lorazepam, then self-administered to evade detection.
The Divisional Court affirms the OPSDT’s revocation of Dr. Trozzi’s licence. The Doré framework, the non-cooperation duty, and the limits of physician speech.
An Ontario tribunal ruled physicians have no Charter privacy interest in their patients’ records. Subsequent proceedings produced a 12-month suspension.
The OPSDT released two penalty decisions in January 2024 in COVID-19 misinformation cases. One physician received a six-month suspension. The other was found ungovernable and had his licence revoked.
The OPSDT imposed a two-month suspension and a reprimand on a physician for unprofessional COVID-19 commentary, calibrated to the lower end of the discipline spectrum.
A Northern Ontario ER physician was found guilty of misconduct and separately found incompetent for sustained COVID-19 misinformation across a two-year period.
A general surgeon was suspended for 18 months after sexual misconduct against an ultrasound technician at his hospital, with a prior discipline history weighing heavily.
A family physician was suspended for five months after using OHIP fraudulently while resident in New York. Discipline for non-clinical conduct under the HPPC.
A family physician refused to cooperate with multiple CPSO investigations during the pandemic. The OPSDT held that the refusal was itself professional misconduct.
A clinical immunologist crossed professional boundaries with a 30-year patient and tried to procure a false alibi during the CPSO investigation that followed.
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