
A health practitioner who had a sexual partnership with a client in a rural local community in the B.C. Interior has been suspended from observe for two decades.

Dr. Norman Keith Lea was working towards in Nakusp, B.C. in 2018 when he commenced a private and sexual connection with a client, in accordance to a public notification from the Higher education of Medical professionals and Surgeons of B.C.

The notification on the college’s web-site signifies that Lea and the inquiry committee investigating his carry out attained a consent arrangement that took outcome on Aug. 31. The general public notification wasn’t revealed till Thursday, even so.

In the consent agreement, Lea admitted to entering the romantic relationship and to exchanging messages with the patient on Facebook and WhatsApp that ended up “flirtatious and sexualized.”

Further more, he admitted that “between August and December 2018, he frequently met with this affected individual on a particular and social basis, that his romance with her turned sexual, and that they experienced sexual intercourse at his health care clinic, in the on-phone home at the Arrow Lakes Hospital, and at other locations all around the community,” in accordance to the public notification.

The conduct explained in the community notification violates the college’s expert conventional about sexual misconduct.

That standard prohibits sexualized get hold of or behaviour of any variety involving doctors and their clients, even associations that would or else be deemed consensual.

“Supplied the electric power imbalance inherent to the affected individual-registrant marriage, the affected individual is under no circumstances in a place to provide consent,” the regular reads.

As self-control for his misconduct, Lea agreed to a printed reprimand and a two-12 months suspension from follow, six months of which can be stayed if other terms and disorders – precisely completion of a multi-disciplinary program, an interview with the college’s registrar and compliance with any monitoring of his exercise – are fulfilled.

The community notification describes the inquiry committee’s rationale for accepting the consent arrangement, stating the committee was “critical” of Lea’s perform.

“The committee mentioned that the registrant violated boundaries in the client-medical doctor relationship by not only moving into a sexual and personal romantic relationship with a patient, but doing so through her scheduled appointments with him in his place of work,” the notification reads.

“The committee expressed its issues that Dr. Lea practised in a small, rural local community, and conveyed that this observe setting needs an even better degree of warning.”