
A health care provider who had a sexual connection with a individual in a rural group in the B.C. Interior has been suspended from exercise for two yrs.

Dr. Norman Keith Lea was practising in Nakusp, B.C. in 2018 when he began a personal and sexual romance with a individual, in accordance to a general public notification from the Higher education of Doctors and Surgeons of B.C.

The notification on the college’s site suggests that Lea and the inquiry committee investigating his carry out reached a consent arrangement that took outcome on Aug. 31. The public notification wasn’t released till Thursday, on the other hand.

In the consent settlement, Lea admitted to moving into the connection and to exchanging messages with the individual on Facebook and WhatsApp that were being “flirtatious and sexualized.”

Further more, he admitted that “concerning August and December 2018, he continuously achieved with this patient on a particular and social basis, that his romantic relationship with her turned sexual, and that they had sexual intercourse at his professional medical clinic, in the on-call home at the Arrow Lakes Clinic, and at other destinations all-around the community,” in accordance to the public notification.

The behaviour described in the public notification violates the college’s qualified normal regarding sexual misconduct.

That regular prohibits sexualized speak to or behaviour of any form involving medical doctors and their people, even interactions that would or else be thought of consensual.

“Presented the electricity imbalance inherent to the individual-registrant connection, the individual is never ever in a posture to deliver consent,” the typical reads.

As self-discipline for his misconduct, Lea agreed to a published reprimand and a two-calendar year suspension from observe, 6 months of which can be stayed if other phrases and problems – particularly completion of a multi-disciplinary program, an job interview with the college’s registrar and compliance with any monitoring of his apply – are achieved.

The public notification describes the inquiry committee’s rationale for accepting the consent agreement, indicating the committee was “vital” of Lea’s carry out.

“The committee said that the registrant violated boundaries in the individual-health practitioner romance by not only coming into a sexual and intimate marriage with a individual, but performing so through her scheduled appointments with him in his place of work,” the notification reads.

“The committee expressed its considerations that Dr. Lea practised in a modest, rural local community, and conveyed that this practice setting demands an even higher degree of caution.”