Doc invokes Charter to fight ruling on sex abuse
End of affair between prominent plastic surgeon, employee, led to revoking of licence to practise
For the better part of the last decade, things appeared to be going well for prominent Toronto plastic surgeon Dr. Sammy Joe Sliwin and Ms. X.
They were having sex at the office in between Ms. X’s various surgeries, which ran the plastic gamut and included breast enlargement, filler injections in her upper lip and a facelift. Free of charge.
The first time she says they had sex — March 8, 2001— was so special that when she had to change the PIN on her bank account years later, Ms. X chose 0308.
Ms. X also kept a “diary”; every time they had a workplace romp — she worked for Sliwin on and off over the years — she would make a dot with a felt pen on the Milk Calendar.
But in 2007, the relationship ended. Ms. Xlater complained to the College of Physicians and Surgeons, whose discipline committee found in 2013 that Sliwin was guilty of sexual abuse because Ms. X was a patient. All the details included in this story come from the committee’s decision.
Earlier this month, the college ordered Sliwin’s licence revoked. He is mounting an appeal in Ontario’s Divisional Court, arguing the rules for mandatory revocation of licences are unconstitutional.
On Wednesday, the court granted a stay, meaning Sliwin can continue to practise medicine while his appeal is pending.
“There will be no comment,” said his lawyer, Marie Henein.
Ms. X, whose identity is covered by a publication ban and who had also filed a civil suit against Sliwin, which was later settled, would testify at the disciplinary proceedings that she had been “completely destroyed” by the relationship’s breakdown.
Sliwin has not been criminally charged because the relationship was consensual, said Henein, who has been in the news for also defending former CBC radio host Jian Ghomeshi on seven counts of sexual assault.
The college will respond to the appeal in court, said college spokeswoman Kathryn Clarke, who declined further comment.
The committee concluded that Sliwin “allowed his feelings . . . to overcome his better judgment.”
He denied during the disciplinary proceedings that he committed professional misconduct.
The pair first met in 1988, when both were married parents, according to the committee decision. Ms. X worked infrequently as a receptionist and later office manager for Sliwin in the 1990s and 2000s.
Their conversations gradually grew to become more flirtatious, Ms. X testified, describing it as “like high school.”
She “testified that the relationship became sexual, by mutual consent, following an evening at Office 2,” in 2001, according to the decision. “Both testified that they ‘fell into each other’s arms.’ ”
Ms. X had breast enlargement surgery within a week of that encounter. Between the medical consultation and discussion of risks about the surgery one evening, Ms. X testified, Sliwin told her something along the lines of “If you do this, then I can’t be your lover anymore.” But lover he continued to be. “While their attraction for each other remained strong, they were in no sense family or even ‘a couple,’ ” says the committee decision. “They did not go out on ‘dates’ and avoided being seen together in public. Their encounters occurred almost exclusively in the office.”
Sliwin testified that he had no actual record to back up his memory of when the pair had sex, although he recalled that on one of their early encounters, “she brought a blanket.”
He never wanted Ms. X to believe that he would actually leave his wife to marry her, Sliwin testified. She saw things differently, testifying that she was “crazy about him.” She and her husband separated in 2002 and later divorced, while Sliwin was still married as of 2013, according to the decision. The discipline committee flatly rejected Sliwin’s defence that he was not in a typical doctor-patient relationship, that Ms. X was more of a “sophisticated consumer” of cosmetic surgeries, and that Ms. X even told the college their relationship was consensual.
“Courts have accepted that there is a power imbalance between a doctor and patient so that no sexual relationship between a doctor and pa- tient can ever be truly consensual,” the committee wrote.
Among the grounds of Sliwin’s appeal are arguments that the provisions for mandatory revocation of a medical licence, applied in Sliwin’s case, violate Section 7 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms: rights to liberty and security of the person.
The constitutional arguments were rejected by the discipline committee prior to its decision to revoke Sliwin’s licence.
“The effect of the mandatory revocation provisions is to deny such persons access to limited treatment from the member (of the college) with whom they happen to be in a spousal or spousal-like relationship,” reads Sliwin’s Notice of Appeal filed with the Divisional Court.
“This constitutes a deprivation of the liberty and security of the person of spouses, common-law partners, and other persons in spousal-like relationships with a member.”
The notice says the mandatory revocation provisions also violate Sliwin’s right to equality, arguing that “intimate, spousal-like relationships are treated differently than legally married couples under the mandatory revocation provisions.”
The discipline committee pointed out that, while some colleges allow their members to perform treatment on their spouses, the College of Physicians and Surgeons does not.
“I suspect they’re going to face an uphill battle,” said medical malpractice lawyer Paul Harte, when asked of the appeal’s chance of success. “The college’s decision (on the constitutional arguments) was very thoughtfully written, and I think they got it right.”