'Unfit to practise': Doctor's many offences included turning away an elderly patient who collapsed outside

A Manitoba doctor with a long list of offences that included refusing to see an elderly patient who had collapsed near his clinic has been stripped of his licence and ordered to pay $40,000 in investigation and hearing costs. Dr. Leonard Elia Lockman, who practised for 30 years and was medical director of a Winnipeg family medicine and walk-in clinic, was deemed unfit to practise by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Manitoba, based on a nine-year history of misconduct. "For the protection of the public, cancelling Dr. Lockman's registration with CPSM is the only way to prevent repeated acts of misconduct," the college’s inquiry panel wrote in its decision document. One of the incidents examined by college investigators involved a 73-year-old patient who arrived at Dr. Lockman’s clinic in respiratory distress after collapsing outside a nearby retail store. The clinic receptionist initially told the patient that the two doctors onsite—which included Dr. Lockman—were not seeing walk-in patients at the time. But when the other doctor came out to the reception area, he saw immediately that the patient needed urgent assistance. He asked Dr. Lockman for help, but the latter refused, claiming he could not leave the patient he was attending to at the time. However, the patient testified that her visit with Dr. Lockman was essentially over at that point and that she had urged him to attend to the other patient. Read: Doctor retaliated against patient who complained about him, regulator concludes Medical experts retained by the college to examine Dr. Lockman’s files found he did not conduct appropriate follow-ups, even with patients who had serious conditions, and also raised questions about his prescribing practices. For example, the experts found that Dr. Lockman had prescribed clonazepam to one patient and furosemide to another without “adequate rationale.” They also questioned Dr. Lockman’s practice of keeping some patients on antibiotics for extended periods. "By failing to treat, manage or follow up on medical conditions adequately, he failed to practise medicine competently,” wrote the inquiry panel. “He caused some of his patients harm by making unsupported diagnoses and inaccurate, unclear, and inappropriate patient records that could be damaging to them for years to come." In addition to numerous complaints about quality of care, the college also based its decision on misconduct related to billing and record-keeping. According to the decision document, between 2012 and 2020 Dr. Lockman was responsible for an “unethical system” for billing that saw his clinic submitting inappropriate or unsupported claims for insured services under the province’s health plan. Between 2011 and 2019 he also created and maintained patient records with multiple entries that did correlate to the actual care he had provided. Read: Just trying to help: Doctor slammed after he 'worked around the rules' so a patient could get meds On two occasions, according to the college, Dr. Lockman fabricated clinical encounters that did not occur and then billed for the visits. In one or these cases, he had noted a diagnosis of ischemic disease even when there was no evidence of this condition and even though he had never seen the patient. The fabrication was discovered only after the patient—who had previously seen another doctor in the clinic—came in to pick up his medical records so he could file for a disability claim. In the other case, a patient who came to pick up her medical records so she could transfer to another clinic saw that Dr. Lockman had recorded her attendance that day as a clinical encounter and falsely documented a discussion regarding “dietary counselling, advice, refer dietary clinic to discuss hyperlipidemia.” The patient later filed a complaint with the college. Read: Practice management: When it's time to part ways

'Unfit to practise': Doctor's many offences included turning away an elderly patient who collapsed outside

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