Toronto doctor facing penalty over patient’s sexual abuse allegations

TORONTO — A Toronto doctor faces a possible penalty after Ontario’s medical watchdog found he made sexual remarks and inappropriately touched a female patient during psychotherapy sessions over several years.

The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario’s discipline committee launched an investigation after a woman, whose identity is protected by a publication ban, filed a complaint against Dr. William (Art) Beairsto in January 2013.

In its decision, released earlier this month, the discipline committee said Beairsto provided the patient — referred to as Patient A — with psychotherapy from 1997 to 2012, and “intermittently” addressed her physical health too.

Patient A alleged that during one of her visits, Beairsto came around his desk and positioned himself with one hand on the patient’s buttocks — stroking them — and one hand in front of her, restricting her movement.

The woman testified at the disciplinary hearing that the doctor’s actions made her feel like “a deer in the headlights”, and she left quickly after.

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Beairsto “denied ever touching Patient A for sexual gratification,” according to the decision, but the discipline committee found that the doctor’s touching of the patient’s buttocks constitutes sexual abuse. It also wrote that there was no clinical reason for Beairsto to stroke his patient’s buttocks, especially given that the alleged incident occurred after a psychotherapy session.

A lawyer for Beairsto declined to comment on the decision when reached on Tuesday by The Canadian Press.

The woman also alleged that the doctor hugged and kissed the patient on both cheeks after each visit, and Beairsto did not deny the allegations, according to the decision.

“He described the hugs as ‘European in style, and of a cocktail variety,’ as opposed to sexual hugs,” the decision reads. Beairsto said he “sincerely regrets” hugging Patient A because she “badly” misinterpreted his actions.”

“Upon learning of Patient A’s allegations, Dr. Beairsto testified that he has changed his practice and now hugs and kisses his gay male patients only, as this allows him to demonstrate that, as a straight man, he is not homophobic.”

The patient testified that “Beairsto touched himself near his genitals and then smelled his hand”. Beairsto said he wouldn’t have touched his crotch, but that he “might have moved his hand from somewhere below the desk towards his nose” as part of a “demonstration” that smelling one’s vagina can be a helpful tool to figure out whether an infection has resolved itself, the decision said.

However, committee members wrote in their decision that Beairsto’s account of the incident “is so outside the norm of what is a professional way to communicate medical information that, even if not salacious as alleged, it is completely inappropriate.”

The woman also alleged that in 2011, Beairsto offered to check the patient’s chest because of an ongoing issue with bronchitis.

She testified that he rolled up her shirt — without first asking if she would do it — and “while looking at her chest and breasts, Dr. Beairsto smiled and made a ‘woo’ sound that sounded to her like a sound of ‘approval.’ “

In its decision, the committee described Beairsto as “evasive and self-serving”, and said he reacted to some questions in a “self-righteous way”.

A spokeswoman for the college said a penalty hearing for Beairsto is still being scheduled.

The committee is part of a regulatory body and its decisions don’t require the same level of scrutiny as a criminal court.

Nicole Thompson, The Canadian Press