‘Repeated predatory behaviour’: Licence stripped from doctor who sexually abused patient and practice monitor

An Ontario doctor who sexually abused a female patient and a practice monitor has been stripped of her licence to practise medicine in the province.“Your repeated predatory behaviour and your lengthy history of enticing women for your own sexual gratification without considering the impact on these women is deeply disturbing,” the Ontario Physicians and Surgeons Discipline Tribunal told Dr. James Edward Roland McInnis in a written reprimand delivered on March 21. “This reveals a complete lack of insight on your part. You have left your victims with permanent scars which still affect their lives daily.”The revocation of Dr. McInnis’ licence came about two months after the tribunal—the disciplinary arm of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario—found him guilty of a number of having sex with two patients, the fiancée of another patient and with a nurse who had been hired to be his practice monitor and chaperone during appointments with female patients.He was handed an interim suspension as part of the guilty findings. Dr. McInnis, who practised in the communities of Wasaga Beach and Angus—located about two-and-a-half hours north of Toronto—has denied the charges of sexual abuse and unprofessional conduct.He had previously been disciplined twice for boundary violations involving female patients and colleagues and required since 2011 to have a practice monitor present for all appointments with female patients.Read: Doctor found guilty of having sex with his practice monitor, two patients and the fiancée of another patientIn this latest case, Dr. McInnis was found guilty of sexually abusing and supplying drugs and drug paraphernalia to a female patient with a substance abuse problem.The tribunal also ruled that he had engaged in disgraceful, dishonourable and unprofessional conduct when he dated a female patient. While Dr. McInnis insisted that a physician-patient relationship did not exist at the time he was dating the woman, the college’s investigation revealed that he started making advances towards the patient the day after she came in for an appointment.Shortly after he offered to take the patient to Las Vegas and buy her a dress, his receptionist deleted the patient’s chart notes, diagnosis and appointment from the clinic’s system, according to the case documents.Dr. McInnis was also found to have acted unprofessionally when he had a sexual relationship with a woman engaged to one of his patients. He continued to treat this patient and even had one appointment where the patient confided he was having mental health problems after learning his fiancée had had an affair but did know with whom.“You engaged in disgraceful, dishonourable, and unprofessional conduct when providing care to a patient while having an affair with his fiancée,” wrote the tribunal in its reprimand. “You breached their trust by continuing to treat them and by not terminating the doctor-patient relationship when you decided to have a sexual relationship with their fiancée.”Read: Doctor’s rural incentive reward complicated by CPSO’s disciplineThe tribunal also denounced Dr. McInnis for initiating a sexual relationship with his practice monitor—”the very person appointed by the college to report on your practice”—when the monitor was at a vulnerable stage in her life.“You abused your power, took advantage of her and your actions undermined her independence as a practice monitor and dissuaded her from reporting you to the college,” wrote the tribunal. “Your behaviour was disgraceful, dishonourable, and unprofessional.”Read: Doctor’s rural incentive reward complicated by CPSO’s discipline

‘Repeated predatory behaviour’: Licence stripped from doctor who sexually abused patient and practice monitor

Register for free access or login.

Related Topics