DISCIPLINE SUMMARIES
Clowater’s account lacked sufficient funds. Again, Dr.
Clowater was notified on several occasions that her
CMPA coverage had lapsed. She attempted to pay
the outstanding retroactive balance by a letter dated
February 10, 2011 which was received on March 7,
2011. The CMPA responded by returning her cheque
because Dr. Clowater had not complied with the
proper procedure for resuming CMPA membership
or with filing a request for backdating.
On several occasions during Dr. Clowater’s lapsed
coverage period, the CMPA attempted to contact her.
She was not responsive. The Committee was struck
with the similarity of Dr. Clowater’s non-responsive-
ness with the CMPA and how she conducted herself
in her interactions with the College. In the Commit-
tee’s view, her pattern of repeatedly failing to respond
to important requests related to her ability to prac-
tise medicine demonstrate that Dr. Clowater either
fails to understand or is ignorant of her professional
responsibilities.
The Committee was particularly troubled by the
fact that Dr. Clowater practised for a significant
period of time without liability coverage. Practis-
ing medicine without coverage poses a major risk to
patients. It is fortuitous that no actual harm befell
these patients and that Dr. Clowater eventually
received backdated coverage in 2013. However, the
public, and specifically the patients Dr. Clowater saw,
were not protected at the time she saw the patients.
The public, the profession, and the College all expect
that physicians will practise with liability coverage.
The Committee considered Dr. Clowater’s failure to
do so to be serious and reprehensible behaviour. The
Committee concluded that this behaviour also merits
a suspension.
The CMPA confirmed that Dr. Clowater’s member-
ship was reactivated on June 17, 2011.
Dishonesty
On September 27, 2011, the Chatham-Kent Health
Alliance informed the College that Dr. Clowater’s ap-
pointment to Courtesy Staff was deferred because she
had allowed her CMPA coverage to lapse. In October
2013, the College asked Dr. Clowater about the lapse
in her CMPA coverage. Dr. Clowater responded that
she only became aware that her CMPA membership
had lapsed after receiving the October 2013 letter
from the College. This was untrue.
In her response to the College, Dr. Clowater sought
to avoid the blame for her rejected CMPA debit,
claiming her failure to pay was either due to the fact
that she was changing banks or because of her office
manager. Dr. Clowater stated that “arrangements
were made to immediately bring her account [with
the] CMPA current” once she was notified of her
lapse. In fact, the CMPA had contacted Dr. Clowa-
ter in December 2010, January 2011, and February
2011 before receiving a response from Dr. Clowater
in March 2011.
Dr. Clowater also was not honest with the College
in her September 28, 2011 email response when she
stated that she had not been practising since Septem-
ber 7, 2011. While the Committee accepted that Dr.
Clowater advised the College on September 29, 2011
that she had seen 90 patients from September 15 to
28, 2011, the Committee did not find her attempt
to explain why she thought she could practise during
that period to be credible.
Dr. Clowater once again misled the College in
her January 26, 2012 letter, writing that, “I didn’t
know my certificate was suspended until September
9” when she said she was notified by the secretary at
the Children’s Treatment Centre in Chatham. The
evidence before the Committee demonstrates the
College’s repeated efforts to have Dr. Clowater com-
ply by paying her annual dues. The College issued
multiple warnings of her impending suspension, and
the College notified Dr. Clowater once her suspen-
sion was in effect.
The Committee found that her actions overall have
seriously undermined her integrity, which is one of
the core values of the profession.
Mitigating and Aggravating Factors
While no actual harm befell patients as a conse-
quence of Dr. Clowater’s misconduct, Dr. Clowater
was not acting in her patients’ interests when she
allowed her CMPA coverage to lapse. She was also
not considering the need for her patients to receive
continuity of service when she allowed her licence
to be suspended for lack of payment of membership
dues.
Full decisions are available online at www.cpso.on.ca.
Select Doctor Search and enter the doctor’s name.
ISSUE 3, 2017 DIALOGUE
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