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]

Registration processes do not occur instantaneously; applicants send in applications for registration, and regulators may then respond, at an administrative level, to advise that some requirements have been met but others have not. Until recently, the role of the Health Professions Review Board (HPRB) has been to intervene only at the end of the process, [Read More]

The Health Professions Review Board (HPRB) addressed the ability of an applicant to obtain “reciprocal” registration with a health college in British Columbia, based on his former unregulated practice in another Canadian jurisdiction, and his current licensed practice in a U.S. jurisdiction. The HPRB agreed a bylaw granting registration to an applicant who “holds” registration [Read More]

Looking back, the professional regulatory cases in 2011 reveal some major themes: applicant character and fitness; regulatory processes and human rights; impartiality of adjudicators and regulatory staff; and decision-making, including adequacy of reasons. The cases in these areas remained relatively consistent with previous decisions, but with some expansion, or at least clarification, of some human [Read More]