Toronto doctor’s licence revoked after admitting to sexual affair with cancer patient

TORONTO – A Toronto doctor has had her licence revoked after an intimate relationship with her cancer patient that included having sex while he was receiving treatment in hospital.

Theepa Sundaralingam, an oncologist, pleaded no contest to sexual abuse and disgraceful, dishonourable or unprofessional conduct at a disciplinary hearing at the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario this week.

The relationship began when Sundaralingam diagnosed the man, who cannot be named due to a publication ban, with cancer in January 2015, according to an uncontested statement of facts. The affair began with flirtatious texts.

“Have u ever been to a porn and cheese party?” Sundaralingam wrote in one of the texts to the patient at 11:26 p.m. on March 3, 2015. “Oh wait, I don’t think that’s a normal activity – my bad.”

Those texts escalated to sex and masturbation in a hospital where he was receiving treatment for cancer, including one night where she slept in the patient’s bed.

Sundaralingam, 37, also asked the patient to alter hospital documents to hide the affair, the statement of facts said.

“Almost instantly after diagnosing Patient A with a life-altering diagnosis, Dr. Sundaralingam began to breach well established boundaries between physicians and patients,” Amy Block, the college’s prosecutor, said at the doctor’s disciplinary hearing.

“This was all with the knowledge that what she was doing was wrong. The evidence makes clear that she asked Patient A to falsify hospital documents in order to conceal her abuse. Only revocation can maintain confidence in the medical profession’s ability to regulate itself.”

Sundaralingam would often stay with the patient for hours while he was at the hospital for chemotherapy, the disciplinary hearing was told. She performed blood transfusions on him and the pair also touched each other sexually, the statement of facts said.

In one visit after she examined the patient, Sundaralingam asked the patient to examine her, according to the statement of facts. He complied.

They had sex in the hospital on two occasions and also engaged in sexual activities when she visited him at his family home for treatment.

In September 2016, after having sex at the patient’s home, Sundaralingam told him she was in love with a colleague, the disciplinary panel heard. Their sexual relationship ended, documents say. By November 2015 she refused to see him.

The development was “devastating” for the patient, he wrote in a victim impact statement.

“Dr. Sundaralingam was the person who both managed my health and provided me with emotional support during cancer treatment,” he wrote. “She was the same person who abandoned me at my most vulnerable point. I was physically emaciated and emotionally exposed and the loss of a critical relationship defeated me.”

The patient said he didn’t understand the ramifications of the relationship with his doctor, nor did he understand his vulnerability.

“There was an imbalance of power in the relationship because of my dependence on her for both medical care and emotional and sexual intimacy,” he wrote.

The patient also said he has seen a psychologist for treatment.

Sundaralingam was ordered to pay $16,000 towards the patient’s therapy and $6,000 in costs to the college.