Psychiatrist stripped of licence after decades of complaints
It took close to three decades, criminal charges and dozens of complainants for disgraced psychiatrist Stanley Dobrowolski to finally lose his right to practise medicine.
For years, the London, Ont., doctor had hung on to his medical licence amid allegations of having inappropriate relationships with women, sexually assaulting patients and surreptitiously recording some as young as17 in stages of undress to accumulate a stash of about 10,000 images and videos.
He appeared before a College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO) discipline committee four times and was finally criminally charged with related offences, but never had his certificate to practise revoked. That is, until Monday. After hearing how Dobrowolski fondled the breasts, vaginas and bodies of female patients, a college committee decided, “Society will be for the better if Dr. Dobrowolski never practises again.”
It’s remarkable that it took this long to reach that conclusion, said Toronto medical malpractice lawyer Amani Oakley. “The CPSO is supposed to protect the public against problem doctors. It certainly appears that they failed to accomplish their task in Dr. Dobrowolski’s case.” CPSO counsel Morgana Kelly-thorne told a hearing Monday the doctor “has shown himself . . . to be ungovernable.” Dobrowolski, once a psychiatrist at Western University’s Student Health Services who also ran a practice out of his home, wasn’t there to hear the criticism.
In 2012, his licence was suspended on an interim basis pending a hear- ing. When it arrived Monday, the jail sentence he’s been serving since May 2014 — for16 counts of sexual assault, one count of voyeurism involving nine women and one count of breaching a court order involving 12 women — kept him from attending.
Dobrowolski is among a handful of doctors whose improprieties the Star has revealed. After recent Star investigations, the college agreed to kick-start a task force investigating doctors who keep practising after being found guilty of such misconduct.
The first time he came to the college’s attention, in 1995, he admitted that he had intercourse with a patient who had just attempted suicide. Their trysts, the college heard, occurred at a conference in Ottawa, in a hotel and at his home when his wife and children were away.
Now the patient “has stated that she will never again see a psychiatrist and she is confused regarding sexuality. His behaviour has put her squarely at risk for self-harm,” college documents said.
Yet Dobrowolski’s punishment was only a suspension for12 months, with the latter nine waived if he sought treatment and agreed to supervision. He was next in front of the CPSO committee for offences stemming from interactions with four university students — between 1987 and 1991, some complainants alleged, he kissed them, took them out for drinks and performed inappropriate breast exams.
His licence wasn’t removed; instead, he was subject to five months of supervised practice.
Then in 2004 three patients came forward with a range of concerns — crossing patient-doctor boundaries, letting a patient become emotionally dependent on him and conducting a full-body check for moles on a patient’s body, which she described as making her uncomfortable.
His punishment this time involved a six-month suspension of his certificate to practice and restrictions on conducting physical examinations. He was supposed to communicate the limitations to patients, but the committee heard Monday that many were unaware of the restrictions.
Those same patients filed com- plaints that made up some of his most egregious offences: engaging in the sexual abuse of a female, sexually touching patients, masturbating patients, giving a patient money to buy lingerie, shaving a patient and offering to undress for appointments. (The offences were in a statement of facts agreed upon by Dobrowolski’s legal counsel and the CPSO.)
His victims’ impact statements suggested the damage done has lingered. Said one woman, whose name is under publication ban, “No place really feels safe . . . I still have panic attacks. I am working hard to regain my life.”