West Island doctor pleads guilty to violating patient’s rights
Admits delaying woman’s cancer surgery
The doctor at the centre of nearly 700 botched colonoscopies at the Lakeshore Hospital has pleaded guilty to violating a patient’s rights in a separate case before his profession’s disciplinary board.
Dr. Gilles Bourdon pleaded guilty Wednesday before the Quebec College of Physicians’ disciplinary council in a case dating to 2010. Bourdon had failed to comply with a patient’s treatment choice. The woman, who had advanced rectal cancer, opted for immediate surgery, but Bourdon held her “hostage” for months while he tried to convince her to undergo radiation therapy first.
The patient demanded surgery to remove her tumour in August 2010. Bourdon only filed the demand for surgery — marked “urgent” — in October 2010, two months after the patient demanded the procedure.
As of September of that year, believing Bourdon had set the surgical process in motion, the patient called the hospital daily trying to find out when her surgery would be scheduled. On Oct. 18, the frustrated patient removed her medical file from Bourdon’s office. Her family doctor then referred her to another surgeon at the Jewish General Hospital, and she had surgery there within a month.
On Wednesday, Bourdon apologized for not acting sooner. He told the council he regrets overriding his patient’s choice. But he also said he believed his proposed treatment option had better outcomes and that he was acting in his patient’s best interests.
Doctors cannot hold patients “prisoners” until they agree with a prescribed treatment, said lawyer JoAnn Zaor, the disciplinary council’s prosecutor. Bourdon, she said, was obligated ethically to either start the surgery paperwork or refer the patient to another doctor.
Bourdon is also accused of not providing truthful information to the case investigator. While discussing the 2010 infraction during the investigation, Bourdon claimed he had full surgery privileges at the Lakeshore Hospital at the time even though the hospital had in fact barred him from performing com- plex colorectal operations as of 2009.
This case initially went before the board in November 2012 but Bourdon had neglected to bring a lawyer and the hearing had to be rescheduled.
Given his record, Bourdon should have known better, Zaor said.
He has demonstrated a persistent attitude of “negligence” and “nonchalance,” which makes him a public health risk, said Zaor, who demanded Bourdon be suspended from practice for a year and fined $8,000.
The disciplinary board already suspended Bourdon’s licence for two months in 2009 for medical negligence. He was found guilty of failing to take the required medical notes within 24 hours of performing operations in 494 medical files, as well as for misreading lab results.
On the day the colonoscopy recall was announced, Sept. 12, 2012, the Quebec College of Physicians confirmed to The Gazette that it had launched an investigation into Bourdon’s professional conduct.
The hospital was recalling 684 colonoscopies done from 2009 to January 2012 after discovering the exams were incomplete.
Incomplete exams raised fears that some people who got the allclear might actually have cancer.
Officials at the Lakeshore could not say this week how many of the recalled patients were found to have cancer following the revisions.
“We’re not yet done with the recall — we’re still missing some of the results,” said Marie-Andrée Saumier of the West Island Health and Social Services Centre. “We will present the highlights in a few weeks.”
However, at least one man who discovered that he had a cancerous tumour after Bourdon had given him the all-clear is leading a motion for a class-action suit against the doctor and the hospital.
As of March, a total of 469 of the 684 people on the recall list had completed their revision colonoscopies.
Bourdon’s history of medical wrongdoing led the Lakeshore to revoke the surgeon’s hospital duties in March.
The Quebec College of Physicians stepped in three months later and coerced an agreement from Bourdon in June to stop operating in hospitals and stop conducting colonoscopies — pending its investigation into his conduct in light of the massive colonoscopy recall that the hospital was preparing for September.
He can still practise medicine and perform minor surgeries at his Pointe-Claire office.
The disciplinary committee will now deliberate on what sanction it will impose. It could be months before it issues a decision.