discipline summaries
although his testimony on this issue was evasive and somewhat lacking in credibility, as he was reluctant to acknowledge sexual interest on his part. Both Dr. Peirovy and Ms. Z agree that he asked her to sign a note for her chart terminating the doctor-patient relationship. Dr. Peirovy’ s evidence with respect to his usual routine in examining patients in the walk-in clinics where he worked was similarly clear and straightforward. His explanation for why he did not require patients to disrobe, as primarily in the interests of time and convenience, was understandable to the Committee. His statements, however, that examinations of this nature also served to protect a female patient’ s modesty, while the examination itself entailed placing his hand under their clothes and touching their breasts, strikes the Committee as somewhat disingenuous, under the circumstances. Although points of factual disagreement between the evidence of Dr. Peirovy and that of the complainants are relatively few, they are significant. Dr. Peirovy denies that he cupped the breasts of any of these patients, auscultated directly on the nipple or tweaked the breast of a patient. The complainants each allege that Dr. Peirovy touched their breasts in a blatantly sexual fashion. Dr. Peirovy denies that he touched them in this way. Dr. Peirovy’ s defence, essentially, is that his motivation was not sexual, and that he was simply examining these patients in accordance with his usual practice in performing legitimate, clinically-appropriate examinations. Dr. Peirovy submits that the complainants in this case thought that they had been touched in a sexual fashion when, in fact, they had not. It is submitted that the patients misunderstood what had occurred. It is stated that the possible reasons for this misunderstanding included these patients’ unfamiliarity with Dr. Peirovy and his method of examination, his lack of adequate communication with them, and the limited time available for the appointments. Dr. Peirovy argues that his actions as described above were of a clinical nature appropriate to the service provided. Dr. Peirovy’ s position, more precisely, is that the examination of the lungs of these patients was of an appropriate clinical nature, and that the aspects of the touching which the patients interpreted as sexual were incidental to the proper auscultation of their lungs. Dr. Peirovy does not suggest that there was a clinical necessity for him to have cupped the breasts of any patient with his hands, auscultated directly on the nipple, or tweaked the nipple with his fingers. Rather, Dr. Peirovy denies that he touched each of these patients in the specific fashion in which they allege. Dr. Peirovy testified that he had been unaware that any of these six patients had been made uncomfortable by his examinations, or that they had been upset or unhappy about any aspect of their encounters with him, at the times when they were seen. In the case of one complainant, Ms. U, she returned to the clinic with her boyfriend within a few minutes of the examination, obviously upset. Dr. Peirovy indicated that he explained to them why he examined her as he had, and he thought that they were satisfied with the explanation.
Expert Testimony Both the College and Dr. Peirovy presented a medical expert to testify. Both medical experts agree that it was clinically reasonable for Dr. Peirovy to have examined each of the complainants, in light of their presenting problems and their respective histories. The Committee agreed. The expert evidence heard by the Committee also confirms that, in the course of a legitimate and clinically appropriate examination, inadvertent / incidental contact between the hand and / or stethoscope of the examining physician, and the patient’ s breast, including the nipple area, may occur. Neither expert, however, offered the opinion that there was a clinical necessity for Dr. Peirovy to have placed his stethoscope directly on the nipple of a patient, tweak the nipples of one complainant, or cup the breasts of two complainants with his hand.
Similar Fact Evidence – Ms. U, Ms. V, Ms. W, Ms. X The Committee found that the allegations of four of the complainants in this case, namely Ms. U, Ms. V, Ms. W, and Ms. X, were strikingly similar. These were all young women who were examined by Dr. Peirovy on one occasion only at walk-in clinics. The examinations occurred in close temporal proximity, within roughly 12 months in 2009-2010. All of these
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Dialogue Issue 1, 2017