Well-Established Doctor Suspended For Making Sexually Inappropriate Comments
Published November 4, 2017 at 4:06 am
A well-established Mississauga doctor has had his medical license temporarily suspended after the Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons disciplinary committee found he committed professional misconduct by making sexually inappropriate remarks towards both a patient and a nurse.
Recently, the discipline committee announced that it found that Dr. Wycliffe Hobart Baird, who works out of the High Point Medical Centre on Dixie Road and operates the Global Wellness Impact program, “engaged in sexual abuse of a patient.” His medical license has been suspended for two months.
Dr. Baird, a general practitioner who has been practicing medicine since 1972, was found to have committed the offences while working at Trillium Health Partners in Mississauga.
According to the committee, Baird made an inappropriate sexual remark to a patient with a knee injury and later went on to joke about spanking a nurse.
The panel says that in May 2011, the patient saw Baird upon arriving at the hospital emergency room to seek medical attention for a knee injury she sustained during a fall off her motorcycle.
When the patient asked Baird when she would be able to ride her motorcycle again, Baird reportedly responded that she could ride the man who attended the hospital with her instead, saying something to the effect of “he looks like a motorcycle, you could ride him.”
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The panel says that Baird expressed regret for his actions and agreed to write a letter of apology to the patient, but the hospital instead attempted to arrange a meeting between the two parties. The patient refused to meet.
The panel also says that during an evening shift on April 29, 2012, Baird made an inappropriate comment towards a nurse.
While working as an emergency room physician, Baird reportedly asked a nurse if she had understood instructions he had given to a patient. When the nurse joked that she did not, Baird apparently turned around in his chair to face the woman, patted his knees and said, “Nurse A, come and sit on my lap so that I can spank you.”
The comment was made in front of the nursing staff and two patients and prompted the nurse to later tell Baird that she felt “uncomfortable, embarrassed and insulted by his comments.”
The nurse filed a formal complaint against Baird and he agreed to provide a formal letter of apology and to seek professional coaching “with respect to eliminating inappropriate comments in the workplace.”
The panel says Baird successfully completed the professional coaching.
On Nov. 1, the discipline committee ordered the registrar to suspend Baird’s certificate of registration for a period of two months. It also ordered Baird to successfully complete individualized (one-on-one) instruction in medical ethics, with an instructor approved by the College, at his own expense.
Baird also must reimburse the College for funding provided to the patient in the amount of $16,060.00. He must also pay costs to the College in the amount of $5,500.00 within 30 days of this order.
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