A professional being disciplined for professional misconduct or unprofessional conduct who fails to respond to investigative communications from his or her regulatory body may, if this silence is contrary to a duty to reply promptly to its communications, , result in even more severe discipline based on the professional’s “ungovernability.” This is illustrated in the [Read More]

Lovett & Westmacott and Ng Ariss Fong will be holding a two-hour webinar on privacy and confidentiality in professional regulation. The webinar will occur June 7, 2012 from 8:30 a.m.-10:30 a.m. (Pacific Time). Join us from your own office for a practical walk-through of common confidentiality and privacy issues relating to documents and information created [Read More]

Professionals can run up against ethical rules in many possible ways, but the most controversial ways will often involve speech or other forms of expression. Perhaps a professional verbally harasses or insults a patient or another professional. Perhaps a professional violates a rule involving advertising. More controversially, a professional may engage in controversial speech on [Read More]

Health professionals who engage in arguments in their capacity as employers, or as former employers – which arguments may include profanity and the throwing if tissue boxes – are likely to fall short of “unprofessional conduct” as that term is used in the BC Health Professions Act. This was the principle underlying the decision of [Read More]

While the HPRB can accept new documentary evidence that was not before an Inquiry Committee, the HPRB may also refuse to accept new evidence where it relates to a time period before or after the period originally identified by the complaint, concerns parties other than the registrant-respondents, concerns care facilities other than the facility where [Read More]