‘THIS COULD . . . BE MISTAKEN FOR FONDLING’
Dr. George Doodnaught explains pinching of a sedated woman,
An anesthesiologist accused of sexually assaulting 21 women during surgery once explained his actions could be misinterpreted because he often pinched patients’ skin near “the nipple line” to check on their welfare.
In a March 16, 2006, letter placed in his personnel file at North York General Hospital, Dr. George Doodnaught “categorically” denied allegations he had fondled and kissed a middle-aged patient during surgery.
“I do regret Mrs. M still thinks that these events she imagined were real,” Doodnaught wrote in the letter, entered in evidence at his sex assault trial Friday.
Doodnaught, 64, has pleaded not guilty to 21 counts of sex assault involving 20 women, age 25 to 75, under surgery at North York General and one at a private clinic, between 2006 and 2010.
On Friday, F.M., the first of the 21 to complain, testified he fondled her breasts and touched her lips with his lips several times during her knee replacement surgery on Feb. 2, 2006.
She said she tried to open her eyes but all she could see was a shadow of a face, and she heard Doodnaught saying, “The surgery is going well. Are you all right?”
She said she replied she was OK out of fear.
“I was scared he may do something to me if I said I wasn’t all right,” she told prosecutor Susan Kim, weeping.
Like two other women who have testified so far, F.M. said Doodnaught was near her head and upper body, which were mostly hidden by a vertical blue sheet from surgeons on the other side.
Soon she, her husband and niece complained to the hospital and met with its acting head of anesthesiology, Dr. Maurice Derek Shilletto.
“He was very, very defensive, trying to protect Dr. Doodnaught,” she testified.
Her niece, who is a lawyer, told Shilletto she would draw up a letter outlining the contents of the meeting and their agreed course of action and send it to him.
The couriered March 2, 2006, letter was entered in evidence Friday.
“I confirm that Dr. Doodnaught will be closely scrutinized hence forward, that this letter will be filed in his record as a formal complaint against him,” it states.
F.M. said she didn’t hear back from the hospital. But in March 2010, she saw on the TV news that Doodnaught had been charged with sex assaults.
She saw the head of the hospital, Bonnie Adamson, on TV stating there had been no complaints before 2007. “I flipped my lid — when we complained in 2006. We felt betrayed by the hospital,” D.M. testified. Shilletto testified Friday he has no recollection of receiving the couriered letter from F.M.’s niece. However, someone at the hospital signed for it, records show. Shilletto told prosecutor David Wright he concluded Doodnaught had not sexually assaulted F.M., but was touching her to assess the level of spinal anesthetic, and she could have been experiencing hallucinations caused by the drugs he administered. He said he ordered Doodnaught to write a letter outlining his explanation. Doodnaught’s letter explained he would often check on the patient “by pinching the skin. Starting from the umbilical level to the nipple line and observing the reaction of the patient. This could in a lightly sedated patient be mistaken for fondling.” Doodnaught wrote that during a typically very noisy operation, “I have to speak directly into the patient’s ear, or put my ear close to the patient’s mouth to hear what they are saying. Hence I could understand how a sedated patient may perhaps mistake this as an inappropriate act from me.” Considering the seven-odd other people in the operating room, he wrote, “any improprietous act on my part would be downright foolish. . . . As to trying to kiss the patient, remember we all wear masks.” The trial continues Monday.