Disgraced doctor caught in sting
Jeffrey Seidman, 58, is attempting to get medical licence back
A doctor who lost his medical licence nine years ago for sexually exploiting a patient and is applying for reinstatement has admitted to seeking a romantic relationship with someone he believed was a 17-year-old girl.
Jeffrey Seidman, 58, a former member of a sexual assault trauma team at a Scarborough hospital, pleaded guilty in 2003 to sexually exploiting a 15-year-old patient in the early 1990s.
He has since applied to the College of Physicians and Surgeons to be reinstated. In August 2010, he exchanged sexually suggestive Facebook messages with “Emily,” who he believed to be a 17-year-old girl, but who was in fact a college investigator.
Hearings of the college’s discipline committee this week heard that in the messages, “Emily” asked Seidman to send her a picture of his penis; he declined, saying, “Let’s take it step by step.”
Eventually “Emily” suggested meeting at a restaurant, a meeting Seidman attended. She claimed she missed it because her roommate was sick and asked Seidman to come to her home to treat her, which he did not do.
The college advised Seidman’s attorneys soon afterward that “Emily” was in fact their investigator.
Seidman told the college in a September 2010 letter from his lawyer that he viewed the messages as lighthearted “back-and-forth banter” and he “responded to (Emily’s) blatant solicitation by playing along and feigning interest.” The meetup, he said, was to discuss the Toronto dance scene, with which he is involved.
But in testimony this May, he admitted he was leaving the door open to a long-term romantic relationship with “Emily,” had she proved to be “fabulous.”
“I should have said that in the brief I submitted to the college. I was not honest. I lied,” he said. “I put my career above my obligation to tell the truth.” Forensic psychologist Ronald Langevin, who evaluated Seidman in 2002 and re-evaluated him in 2008 and March 2011, said in testimony Tuesday and Wednesday that such a relationship could be seen as inappropriate socially, but would be a “legal relationship” and not sexually deviant. Langevin said Tuesday that in the 1990s, “the engine driving his behaviour” was a combination of taking Ritalin after a misdiagnosis, and an untreated thyroid condition. The thyroid disorder led to “judgment that was very poor; his thinking processes were significantly af- fected by it,” he said, adding that the condition has been in check since 1994.
He said that Seidman is at a “very low risk” for future inappropriate sexual behaviour. “I see it as an isolated series of events in his life.”
But college lawyer Carolyn Silver noted in cross-examination that even with Seidman’s thyroid condition under control, he continued to treat the patient and pleaded with her not to expose their relationship.
Seidman’s sexual relationship with the girl started in 1992 when she was15 and ended in1995, but he resumed treating her again in 1997 for an eating disorder. She was first referred to him in 1989 at age 12 for bulimia — an eating disorder — and depression. Langevin recommended that Seidman’s thyroid condition be continuously monitored, that he undergo periodic psychiatric evaluations and practise with a group of physicians. He added that Seidman should start by treating only male patients.
Seidman’s reinstatement hearing resumes in January 2013.