Dr. Lawrence Currie Wiser’s Saskatchewan employer won’t say if he is the same Dr. Lawrence C. Wiser who was found to be clinically brain damaged by California’s medical board.

There is only one Lawrence Wiser registered with the province’s medical regulator.

They are the same man.

Read more on the Star’s Medical Disorder investigation

In 1979, fresh out of a residency in Saskatchewan, Wiser travelled to work in Colusa, Calif., but his career at the California practice did not blossom as expected, according to public records posted to his professional profile on the California medical board’s website. Wiser became depressed, and in April 1983 he attempted suicide for the third time in almost as many months. He was left in a coma and on life support for two weeks.

Tests at the time established Wiser “was clinically suffering brain damage,” the California disciplinary record states.

Wiser spent the next two years undergoing a further battery of testing, which the board found demonstrated he was impaired his ability to think and act quickly.

In October 1985, an administrative law judge recommended that the medical board place Wiser on probation for 10 years with a list of conditions, including a requirement that he must first pass an oral clinical exam, and if he does he must be prohibited from solo practice.

“The consequences of Wiser’s physical disabilities at this time should not be suffered by patients,” the judge said.

Read more:

Bad doctors who cross the border can hide their dirty secrets. We dug them up

Canada's medical watchdogs know more about bad doctors than they are telling you

Regulators expect doctors to tell the truth about their past. Here's what happens when they don't

Four months later, the medical board rejected the probation penalty, saying it would instead decide whether “a different decision should not be made to provide greater protection to the public.”

But Wiser surrendered his California licence before that could happen.

In 1989, Manitoba’s health minister, Donald Orchard, hired Wiser as a special policy adviser.

Investigative reporters Diana Zlomislic and Rachel Mendleson discuss the doctors discipline investigation which took 18 months to complete.

Orchard told the provincial legislative assembly Wiser “has a record of distinction in terms of his clinical practice,” and said he would be assigned to work with the province’s college of physicians and surgeons on major health care reforms.

Wiser has never been licensed to practise in Manitoba, the college told the Star.

In 1991, the Saskatchewan College of Physicians and Surgeons, which granted Wiser his first medical licence in 1976, added him back to its roster, where he remains.

Wiser, who was trained in Saskatchewan, is among almost 50 doctors licensed to work in Canada who faced discipline by U.S. medical regulators, according to data compiled by the Star.

The Saskatchewan college knows about his California tests, but has never publicly disclosed them, the Star has confirmed.

The Toronto Star made several attempts to reach Wiser by letter and phone and has received no response.

It is unclear if Wiser is still impaired by his injuries.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

The final round of tests in California found Wiser had a “patent difficulty rapidly using new material in emergency or stressful situations … Where there are time limits and a significant amount of information to process respondent has a difficult time ‘putting it all together.’”

Eighteen months after waking from his coma, Wiser showed substantial recovery in verbal skills but “significant impairment of a number of adaptive abilities,” the California board records state. At least three assessments predicted Wiser could probably function in very familiar situations but not well in novel situations that required quick judgment and action.

Medical evidence has established that “the majority of cognitive recovery takes place within 18 months” of a traumatic brain injury, and “thereafter an individual’s neuropsychological/cognitive status generally remains static,” the board record states.

At his 18-month assessment, Wiser scored an 84 for performance IQ on the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale — an index of the test taker’s evaluation of and ability to organize and solve a new problem. That result was “indicative of significant cognitive impairment,” the medical board record states.

Wiser didn’t necessarily talk or look like a man with brain damage, the records state, but “extensive testing over a period of time has established that (Wiser) continues to experience the residuals of brain damage and a pattern of diffuse injury … The consequences of (his) physical disabilities at this time should not be suffered by patients.”

The Saskatchewan college website hosts public profiles for the province’s doctors, which include information about education, qualifications, licence history and discipline broken down by “cases in process” and “completed cases.” The Saskatchewan college lists no information about the actions of the California board. Wiser’s profile states he has no discipline history.

The college’s associate registrar Bryan Salte told the Star the regulator completed due diligence prior to granting Wiser an “intern/resident” licence upon his return in 1991.

He said the college reviewed “a copy of the neuropsychological assessment done of Dr. Wiser, as well as other information about his efforts to return to medical practice, including an assessment done by the Clinicians Assessment and Enhancement Program in Manitoba.”

Salte said the college did not have Wiser evaluated by its own expert and that the neuropsychological assessment it reviewed was part of a file provided to the college by the doctor.

The California proceedings, Salte said, are “based upon a situation which has now changed” and “is not relevant to his ability to practise in the limited role in Saskatchewan.”

In August 1999, an appeal board hearing directed the Regina Qu’Appelle Health Authority, which managed hospitals in the Regina area, “to give Dr. Wiser a hospital appointment to practise as a surgical assistant,” Salte said, adding he is not permitted to share a record of that decision.

In 2000, the college granted Wiser a regular licence that restricted him to practising as a surgical assistant.

Surgical assistants may perform duties like retracting tissues, tying blood vessels, inserting tubes and intravenous lines or closing surgical wounds. They also perform pre-operative and post-operative patient care.

The Saskatchewan Health Authority, which now controls the Regina authority, would not confirm that the Wiser it employs is the same Wiser who suffered brain damage.

“We do have a Dr. Lawrence Wiser, who is an active member of the practitioner staff in the Regina Area with the Saskatchewan Health Authority, and works as a surgical assistant in our facilities. We cannot confirm whether this is the same Dr. Wiser you may be inquiring about,” a spokeswoman wrote in an email.

Wiser has been an assistant clinical professor with the College of Medicine at the University of Saskatchewan, his alma mater, since 2010.

A spokeswoman for the university would not provide details about Wiser’s role with the medical school, only that he may be involved in either clinical teaching of students and medical research, or both.

With files from Emma Jarratt

Read more about: