Ada Jeffrey

The applicant physician applied for reinstatement of his certificate of registration, which was revoked in 2019 for sexual abuse of a patient.

The College did not oppose the application.

The Tribunal found that the applicant had engaged in extensive rehabilitation, including psychotherapy and boundaries courses, and demonstrated significant insight and remorse.

Concluding that the risk of future misconduct was low and manageable, the Tribunal granted the reinstatement subject to strict terms, conditions, and limitations, including clinical supervision and practice assessments.

The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario brought disciplinary proceedings against a pediatrician who provided medical care, including prescribing large amounts of controlled substances and narcotics, to close family members over a nine-year period.

The registrant failed to document his care, billed OHIP inappropriately, and failed to store drugs securely.

The Tribunal found that the registrant committed professional misconduct.

Accepting a joint submission on penalty, the Tribunal ordered a 12-month suspension, a reprimand, completion of ethics and record-keeping courses, and $6,000 in costs.

In a professional discipline proceeding, the panel found that a social worker committed professional misconduct by refusing counselling services based in part on the complainant's Chinese ethnicity and assumptions about social media use and boundary risks.

Applying the prima facie discrimination framework under the Ontario Human Rights Code, the panel held that the complainant suffered adverse treatment in the provision of services and that the protected ground was a factor in the refusal.

The panel accepted expert evidence on social work boundaries and cultural competence, found that the registrant failed to make adequate inquiries before asserting a boundary conflict, and rejected the registrant's procedural fairness and abuse of process arguments.

Some allegations were dismissed, including those tied to self-determination, referral adequacy, and the intake-form language error, but multiple standards breaches and Code-related misconduct findings were made.

The Association of Professional Engineers of Ontario alleged that the respondent engineer and his firm committed professional misconduct by preparing structurally inadequate design plans for three residential projects.

The plans lacked necessary details, failed to comply with the Ontario Building Code, and included elements at risk of collapse.

The respondents, whose expertise was in mechanical rather than structural engineering, admitted to the misconduct via an Agreed Statement of Facts.

The Discipline Committee accepted a joint submission on penalty, ordering a reprimand, a $1,000 fine, and a condition that the respondent must practice under supervision if his recently resigned licence is ever reinstated.

The College of Nurses of Ontario brought disciplinary proceedings against a Registered Practical Nurse who accessed a colleague's electronic medical record without authorization and disclosed to another staff member that the colleague had been admitted to the mental health unit.

The matter proceeded by way of an Agreed Statement of Facts and a Joint Submission on Order.

The Discipline Committee found that the nurse committed professional misconduct by breaching privacy and confidentiality standards.

Applying the public interest test, the Committee accepted the joint submission and ordered a reprimand, a two-month suspension, and remedial conditions including meetings with a regulatory expert and employer notification.

A discipline panel found that the member committed professional misconduct by making sexualized comments to a vulnerable counselling client, pursuing sexual topics after the client expressed discomfort, and disclosing intimate details of his own sexual history.

The panel also found longstanding and serious failures to maintain required clinical documentation, including progress notes, psycho-social assessments, and treatment plans across multiple files.

Applying the balance of probabilities standard, the panel accepted the evidence of the client and corroborating witnesses as clear, cogent and convincing.

All allegations of professional misconduct were proven.