Pierre Dupont has had his licence to work as a medical professional revoked for the second time in a dozen years after putting the health of his patients in danger. Let’s hope it’s the last time.

The outrageous tale of Dupont’s professional incompetence is a cautionary tale about the failings of our system of self-regulation, where the public puts its faith in professions of all kinds, from doctors to engineers to lawyers — and chiropodists — to set standards for their members and protect the public from the rotten apples in their midst.

It’s a huge responsibility but too often, when professional bodies are asked to decide between protecting their own and protecting the public, their automatic reaction is to stick up for their own. How often do we read about the lawyer dipping into a client’s trust account and getting a slap on the wrist from the law society or a physician getting hit with a brief suspension after being found guilty of sexually abusing a patient?

Back to Dupont, who began his professional career as a dentist in Quebec. In 2001, Quebec’s Order of Dentists laid 34 charges of unprofessional conduct against Dupont involving excessive use of sedatives and anaesthetics on 10 patients, including a 71-year-old woman who stopped breathing in the dentist’s chair and later died.

Another patient, a 52-year-old woman, was given a dangerous dose of adrenaline during dental surgery at the hands of Dupont, despite her history of heart problems. She spent 21 days in hospital, including 17 in a coma.

Dupont’s malpractice was so widespread that the Quebec Order of Dentists revoked his licence for life in 2005. Not satisfied to go work in a convenience store or another place where he could do no harm, Dupont registered for a podiatry program at the University of Quebec in Trois-Rivieres. When the university discovered his past, it tried to expel him but Dupont appealed and graduated in 2010.

Dupont then applied to become a professional podiatrist. The Quebec Order of Podiatrists wanted nothing to do with him and fought in court to keep him from practising, knowing his horrific past. But Dupont had a better idea. He simply headed to Ontario, where unbelievably, the Ontario College of Chiropodists seemed more than happy to accept him as one of their own.

Knowing about his past, the college placed Dupont on probation for two years but never bothered to follow up, allowing him a full permit to practice his dark arts in Ottawa. Soon, he was offering to implant special implants in the soles of patients to alleviate the pain from flat feet. But rather than improve after the surgery, patients began to suffer from even more severe pain, leaving them debilitated even after removal of the stents.

It turns out that Dupont wasn’t using the Health Canada-approved brand of U.S.-made implants. Instead, he got cut-price ones fabricated by a machine shop and installed the knockoffs on his patients without telling them. What’s just as scary is that it’s unclear where Dupont ever learned how to install the implants, since it wasn’t part of his Quebec podiatry training.

Twenty-five of Dupont’s Ottawa foot patients ended up complaining to the Ontario College but it’s only CBC’s coverage of the case that prompted the College to take action. Finally, this week, it ordered Dupont’s licence to practice chiropody revoked for life and ordered him to pay $30,000 in legal fees. Both Dupont and the College are still facing a $15-million class action lawsuit.

Why the College failed so spectacularly to exercise its public duty is a bit of a mystery, considering Dupont’s past frightening behaviour as a dentist and the efforts made by their colleagues in Quebec to keep him away from patients. Dupont was clearly not a professional who had made a single, unfortunate mistake but a man who had no idea of the depth of his incompetence or simply didn’t care.

One indication of where the Chiropody College was coming from is in this quote from Felecia Smith, its registrar, who was quoted as saying that the college “must not only be conscious of its role to protect the public interest but also be fair to any applicant.” Due process, yes, but never at the expense of protecting the public.

While the Dupont case is as egregious as they get, there are other cases where the professions are failing the public and where politicians have been forced to react.

In Quebec, the National Assembly recently passed changes to the law overseeing professional bodies. One of them stipulates that if a professional has been found guilty by a disciplinary body of an infraction of a sexual nature, that person must be suspended for at least five years.

That change followed public outrage after press reports on the case of Dr. Roger Hobden, a physician who was found to have had sexual relations with an adolescent female patient at his home. His original penalty? A 15-month suspension from practicing medicine.

It’s not just when it comes to disciplinary measures that professional bodies are failing at their task. Recent reports on a wrongful dismissal case involving a senior employee of the Royal College of Dental Surgeons of Ontario have uncovered a case of flagrant institutional conflict of interest at the heart of that college.

For years, the dental college has been running a malpractice insurance business for its members as well as performing its rule as a regulator protecting the public from errant dentists. In effect, the same organization that defends dentists in civil court when they’re being sued for malpractice is also in charge of disciplining them.

And according to the wrongful dismissal lawsuit, information has been routinely shared between staff on the insurance side of the college and those involved in disciplinary actions. This provides a clear incentive for the college to go easy on disciplining wayward dentists so it can save money defending them against malpractice in court.

It doesn’t have to be that way. Physicians in Canada operate a stand-alone medical malpractice firm but it’s a completely separate organization from the Royal College or the Canadian Medical Association. Ontario’s dentists conduct themselves this way because they figure they can get away with it.

Like Quebec, the Ontario also recently passed new legislation bringing in further rules tightening the conduct of professional colleges and similar bodies. Of course, the professions squawked. But as long as Pierre Dupont and his ilk are allowed to put the public at risk, they shouldn’t be surprised when the politicians decide to act.

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