Preventing and Addressing Sexual Abuse of Patients April 2015 | Page 11

EDUCATION CON’T

•  he College provides education to the profession through its policies and other
T
documents, currently available on the website.
•  he following principles are articulated in the preamble to the College’s
T
Maintaining Appropriate Boundaries and Preventing Sexual Abuse policy,
available on our website:

1. A physician, being in a position of trust and power, has a duty to act in the
patient’s best interest.

2. Physicians must establish and maintain appropriate professional boundaries
with patients.

3. Sexual activity and ‘romantic interactions’ interfere with the goals of the
physician-patient relationship and may obscure the physician’s objective
judgment concerning the patient’s health care.

4. Physician sexual misconduct is detrimental to the physician-patient
relationship, harms individual patients and erodes the public’s trust in the
medical profession.

5. Patients must be protected from sexual abuse by physicians.

 addition, the preamble to the policy includes the statement: “The physicianIn
patient relationship is characterized by a power imbalance in favour of the
physician.”
•  he policy Maintaining Appropriate Boundaries and Preventing Sexual Abuse
T
is posted on our website to provide physicians with guidance on sexual abuse
and boundary issues. It states: “sexual relationships are prohibited during the
physician-patient relationship”. The membership receives clarification and
education about this policy through the College’s Dialogue publication.

Measures take