A Toronto doctor has been stripped of his licence and ordered to pay tens of thousands of dollars by Ontario’s medical watchdog.
The penalty comes more than a year after the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario found he made sexual remarks and inappropriately touched a female patient during psychotherapy sessions.
The discipline committee for the college ruled in August of last year that William Beairsto behaved inappropriately toward the patient.
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In a penalty decision released earlier this month, the committee ordered that Beairsto’s licence to practice medicine be revoked.
It also ordered he reimburse the college more than 16-thousand-dollars in funding for therapy and counselling for the patient, and that he pay the college more than 24-thousand-dollars.
Beairsto’s lawyer had requested that he only be barred from practising for three more months, that he continue an educational program on boundaries and that he be supervised by another doctor for twelve months.
But the committee decided that wouldn’t be sufficient and said the punishment for Beairsto’s actions was needed to maintain the public’s confidence in the standards to which doctors are held.