Well, look who gets to be a doctor again.
Six years ago, disgraced Dr. Sugan Kayliasanathan (known in previous reports as Suganthan) was stripped of his license to practise medicine after a disciplinary committee found he’d had sex with a patient.
Now, he’s been found to have undergone “extensive and successful rehabilitation” and has been reinstated, though he’ll be under at least three months of “moderate supervision.”
His name may sound familiar.
In 2014, the family doctor was acquitted following a sensational criminal trial where he and his childhood friend, Dr. Amitabh Chauhan, were accused of drugging and gang raping a 23-year-old medical student at the Sheraton Centre hotel in 2011.
Despite their controversial acquittals, the College of Physicians and Surgeons had hoped to pursue disciplinary charges against the pair. But after the gruelling trial, the complainant refused to testify against them again.
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The two had slipped through their disciplinary grasp: the CPSOA lostA its fight to stop Chauhan from continuing his training as a plastic surgeon. Kayilasanathan continued to work as a family doctor at a Scarborough walk-in clinic.
But then another physician notified the college, as required, that a patient had told her that she was worried she’d contracted a venereal disease from past partners, including Kayilasanathan.
With sex between physician and patient strictly forbidden — consensual or not — the medical regulator now had the ammunition to bring Kayilasanathan back before a disciplinary panel on the new allegations.
After the CPSO took the rare step of actually threatening to seek a bench warrant and her arrest, the reluctant witness, known only as Ms. A., finally agreed to testify. She insisted Kayilasanathan was never really her doctor but just a friend she’d used to get phony medical notes.
His disciplinary hearing found otherwise.
In December 2010, he offered to write her a medical note to be excused from her Monday exam after they’d partied together over the weekend. She came to his Scarborough walk-in clinic on Dec. 6 of that year and Kayilasanathan billed OHIP for an examination and treatment plan.
On her chart, he wrote that he’d asked her to return in a week if her condition worsened, and she left with her note.
In the intervening week, the two met and had sex for the first time at an airport hotel.
On Dec. 13, 2010, she returned to his clinic for another medical note and Kayilasanathan billed OHIP again.
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The discipline committee concluded she was his patient and that he’d committed sexual abuse including sexual intercourse, which required the mandatory revocation of his licence on Dec. 11, 2018.
At his reinstatement hearing, Kayilasanathan, now in his mid-40s, testified alcohol had played a role in the incidents leading to the revocation and the criminal charges because he drank excessively while socializing outside work hours. He told the tribunal he quit drinking in 2011 and changed his social circle.
Kayilasanathan married his wife, a registered nurse, in 2018. After he was banned from practising medicine, he became more involved in his Hindu temple, he said, and helped coordinate COVID-19 vaccination clinics for his community.
For financial reasons, Kayilasanathan and his wife had to move in with his parents in 2020 and with other partners, they founded a company that now mainly does health care recruitment and provides access to health care for people without OHIP.
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“In summary, Dr. Kayilasanathan testified that after having lost his certificate of registration, which also resulted in financial struggles, shame, isolation and the loss of his professional identity, he underwent a transformative process with the help of his spouse, family, priest, volunteer activities and education,” the panel wrote in its recent decision.
A forensic psychiatric examination concluded Kayilasanathan was a “low risk to act in a violent or sexually aggressive manner in the future.” He now accepts responsibility for having sex with his patient and regrets putting her in a position where she had to testify.
“We conclude that he will practise medicine with decency, integrity, honesty and in accordance with the law,” the panel said in its reinstatement decision. “The risk of misconduct, in our view, is low, and can be managed with terms, conditions and limitations.”
We hope they’re right.
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