The case of prominent Brampton physician Dr. Brian Thicke — patriarch of the famous Thicke family — is again being reviewed after Ontario’s medical regulator at first dismissed in secret an allegation he sexually abused a patient.The longtime doctor, father of the late actor Alan Thicke and grandfather to singer Robin Thicke, is accused of groping a female patient’s breasts on two occasions, in 1993 and 1995, during a physical examination that was required to receive a private pilot’s licence. A panel of the inquiries, complaints and reports committee of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO), which operates behind closed doors and reviews documentary evidence but does not hear from witnesses, decided to take no further action in the complaint against Thicke, 88, after it was received in 2015. The dismissal would never have been publicly known had the complainant, Lisa Fruitman, not appealed the decision to the Health Professions Appeal and Review Board (HPARB), a civilian body which makes its decisions public.The board found in September that the complaints committee’s investigation was “adequate,” but that its decision to take no further action was “unreasonable.” HPARB criticized nearly every finding made by the committee, and ordered that the complaint be sent back for review. The case has once again raised concerns over how self-regulating health colleges handle sexual abuse allegations, and highlights the secrecy in which their committees screen complaints. “It’s a good thing Ontario has a review board for college decisions like this one,” said Sen. Marilou McPhedran, who chaired three Ontario task forces on sexual abuse by health professionals, calling the complaints committee decision “chilling.” If not for the appeal, it would also not have become public that Thicke has faced a similar accusation before, in 1994. The complainant in that case went ...
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