discipline summaries
dishonourable or unprofessional conduct in her dealings with six patients( Patients A to F) and their families by:
• Failing to respond appropriately to requests by the College and the patients for their medical records;
• Failing to appropriately maintain patient records;
• Improperly storing vaccines, resulting in a suspension of vaccination privileges from Public Health;
• Not responding to patients’ care concerns;
• Failing to appropriately make referrals for patients;
• Failing to complete forms required by patients;
• Behaving rudely to patients and discharging them without justification or notice and without following the College policy;
• Leaving the patients waiting for hours or more on one occasion;
• Failing to safeguard the patient’ s privacy; and
• Mismanaging appointments with specialists.
Dr. McIntyre failed to maintain the standard of practice of the profession and engaged in disgraceful, dishonourable or unprofessional conduct with respect to her clinical care and treatment of patients, her failure to maintain boundaries, her failure to maintain proper records, her failure to comply with public health requirements, including unsafe storage of vaccines, and her failure to respond in a timely way to requests for patient records.
Registrar’ s Investigation – Clinical Care On the basis of the public complaints, the Registrar of the College appointed investigators to conduct an investigation of Dr. McIntyre’ s practice under s. 75( 1)( a) of the Code. Dr. Z, the independent expert retained by the College, concluded that Dr. McIntyre failed to maintain the standard of practice of the profession and / or engaged in disgraceful, dishonourable or unprofessional conduct with respect to her clinical care and treatment of patients, her failure to maintain boundaries, her failure to maintain proper records, her failure to comply with public health requirements including unsafe storage of vaccines, and her failure to respond in a timely way to requests for patient records. The deficiencies in Dr. McIntyre’ s practice and record keeping included( but were not limited to) the following:( a) The Patient Profile was frequently incomplete, making it difficult to determine the general medical health of the patient from the chart;( b) The charting of medications was unusual, with a separate sheet listing medications prescribed in an alphabetized format, as a summary of the medications the patient is taking regularly, but with no diagnosis associated with the medication. There was no way of determining the amount of medication prescribed at each visit;( c) The most significant concern was that the lines of professionalism and relationships were often blurred, with Dr. McIntyre showing the greatest lack of judgment in cases of patients with whom she had some type of relationship outside the doctor-patient context. In respect of the concerns regarding public health requirements, the College obtained extensive documentation from the Public Health Unit documenting Dr. McIntyre’ s repeated failures to comply with public health requirements and repeated breaches of public health protocols( incorrect refrigeration temperature, incorrect vaccine storage, failure to maintain log books, maintenance of expired vaccines). After attempted and failed remediation plans, Dr. Mc- Intyre’ s office was ultimately suspended from the public health programme through which physicians receive vaccines to administer to their patients.
Registrar’ s Investigation- Disgraceful, Dishonourable, Unprofessional Conduct In January 2011, investigators were appointed to inquire into and examine Dr. McIntyre’ s personal and professional relationships with Mr. X. Mr. X was a patient of Dr. McIntyre’ s for about 20 years. Among other conditions, Mr. X suffered from a mental illness and was recovering from substance abuse. During the course of the doctor-patient relationship, Dr. McIntyre and Mr. X became close friends, and she introduced Mr. X to her family, with whom he formed personal relationships.
In or around 2010, in part due to their increasingly close personal relationship, Dr. McIntyre and Mr. X terminated their doctor-patient relationship. Dr. McIntyre and Mr. X became increasingly closer. Approximately 12 months after the end of the doctor-patient relationship, they began a sexual relationship. The Discipline Committee found that with respect to Mr. X, Dr. McIntyre engaged in disgraceful, dishonourable or unprofessional conduct by failing to maintain appropriate
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Dialogue Issue 4, 2016