Pubdate: Tue, 23 Aug 2016
Source: Hamilton Spectator (CN ON)
Page: A3
Copyright: 2016 The Hamilton Spectator
Contact:  http://www.thespec.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/181
Author: Joel OpHardt

HAMILTON MARIJUANA DOCTOR GETS 3-MONTH SUSPENSION

TORONTO - A Hamilton medical marijuana physician has been handed a 
three-month suspension for misconduct.

Dr. Ira Price pleaded no contest to allegations heard by the 
discipline committee of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of 
Ontario, including altering a medical record and misleading a college 
investigator.

"The college relies on the honesty of its members in achieving self 
governance," committee chair Pamela Chart said during Price's 
official reprimand Monday. "Any failure to be completely honest with 
the college in its investigative process undermines professional 
regulation and the public's confidence in the profession."

The allegations against Price, the medical director of Synergy Health 
Services Inc. in Hamilton, stemmed from a patient seeking care for 
chronic pain with medical cannabis. The patient saw him from December 
2012 to April 2014. He complained Price acted unprofessionally, 
terminating the patient from his practice. The patient's name was 
redacted in documents provided to The Spectator.

When the complaint was filed, Price told the college the patient 
refused a physical examination. When the patient denied that, medical 
records seemed to corroborate Price's version of the events.

But a forensic examination of the charts showed some records 
backdated or portions added at a different time. A letter from Price 
written before the forensic exam said chart entries were made "on the 
dates indicated in (the patient)'s records, and at the same time as 
the other entries included under each date-entry."

"Doctor Price admitted to altering the patient's chart only after the 
college had obtained a forensic report," said college solicitor 
Sayran Sulevani. "The college's respectful submission is the 
committee send a clear, unequivocal message this form of unethical 
conduct won't be tolerated."

Price did not refute the forensic reports, but offered a response 
that he often writes chart notes at different times and with 
different pens, he could not recall when he completed this particular 
patient's entries, and that he may have backdated some notes.

"In this case, the safety of my staff in the workplace was my 
paramount concern," Price wrote The Spectator. "There are times when 
it is difficult to chart difficult patient interactions in full at 
the time events are unfolding because they involve multiple sources 
and interactions."

The committee ordered the suspension of Price's certificate of 
registration for three months starting Sept. 1, and ordered him to 
take the first available course on ethics and record-keeping.

This isn't his first brush with the self-regulating body. He was 
issued a caution by the Inquiries Complaints and Reports Committee in 
2014 after an investigation dating back to 2012 found his 
record-keeping did not meet college standards. He was ordered to use 
electronic record keeping.

Price wrote he believes moving to an electronic record system will 
ease concerns of dating and signing in cases similar to his.

Synergy Health Services' website lists Price as an assistant clinical 
professor, Division of Emergency Medicine, at McMaster University.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom