Son charged in stabbing of Peterborough doctor
Thomas Chan, 19, arrested after father is found dead and woman critically injured
Thomas Chan, the 19-year-old son of a well-known Peterborough gastroenterologist, has been charged with murder and attempted murder after his father was stabbed to death Monday.
Dr. Andrew Chan was found dead and an unidentified woman was found with critical injuries around 4 a.m. on Dec. 28 in Peterborough’s west end.
Police, originally called to the scene for a disturbance, were notified on their way there of a stabbing. They found Chan dead, Peterborough police said in a news release. The woman was airlifted to a Toronto hospital.
Chan owned the Endoscopy Centre clinic. According to a biography on its website, he was born in Hong Kong and attended Liverpool Medical School in England before coming to Canada in 1991.
He studied medicine at the University of Toronto, moved to Peterborough in 1996 and eventually be- came chair of the endoscopy unit at the Peterborough Regional Health Centre.
In 2013, the Endoscopy Centre received approval from the College of Physicians and Surgeons to perform out-of-hospital colonoscopies and other procedures.
Dr. Steven Brien, who recruited Chan to Peterborough, remembered him as a hard worker, well-liked by patients, who enjoyed cars and playing squash.
“He worked very hard. He didn’t give up his scope privileges at the hospital. He was doing the full job at the hospital as well as (at) his office,” Brien said.
Chan was one of just six gastroenterologists in the city and his clinic provided Peterborough’s only outof-hospital gastroenterology services. The other specialists plan to discuss in the next few days how to meet the needs of Chan’s patients.
“We’re going to meet as a group soon to talk it out and . . . recruit a new person to replace him,” Brien said. “There will be some difficulty picking up everybody, but we’ll do our best.”
Thomas Chan is scheduled to appear in Peterborough court Monday.