discipline summaries
honest physician of high morals and ethics. We expect
that your conduct will be such that you will not have
reason to appear before this or any other panel in the
future.
DR. SWARAN KAUR SYAN
Practice Location: Sudbury
Practice Area: General Practice
Hearing Information: Agreed Statement of Facts,
Admission, Joint Submission on Penalty
On April 14, 2015, the Discipline Committee found
that Dr. Syan committed an act of professional misconduct, in that she failed to maintain the standard
of practice of the profession in respect of her care
and treatment of 20 patients. Dr. Syan admitted to
the allegation.
The allegation arose from an investigation into
Dr. Syan’s clinical care and two patient complaints.
With respect to the investigation into Dr. Syan’s
clinical care, in 2011 the College requested further
information in response to an affirmative answer on
Dr. Syan’s Registration Renewal. Dr. Syan advised
that a patient of her family practice had a myocardial
infarction while enrolled in a clinical research study
for hypertension medication. Dr. Syan was a sub-investigator for the study and had referred the patient
for the clinical research study.
The College considered this information and commenced an investigation in order to obtain a broader
view of Dr. Syan’s practice including her enrollment
of patients in clinical research studies.
Dr. X, a specialist in family medicine, was retained
by the College to provide an opinion on Dr. Syan’s
care. Dr. X reviewed a total of 25 charts and noted
a number of areas where Dr. Syan’s general family
practice and her enrollment of patients in clinical
research studies was unsatisfactory including:
With regard to record-keeping, for example:
• Dr. Syan’s handwritten progress notes were difficult to read and sometimes illegible;
• It was difficult to identify patients’ subjective concerns, patient history, physical findings, diagno-
ses, treatment plans, and what medications were
being refilled;
• the patients’ Cumulative Patient Profiles were not
up-to-date or accurate;
• there was no accurate list of current medications
for patients, including duration and dosages, and
a review of lab, specialist and hospital reports
revealed a number of diagnoses not documented
on Dr. Syan’s charts.
With regard to overall care, for example:
• ther