Panel reprimands medical professional who made a sexual remark to a fourth patient
A panel of the Ontario Physicians and Surgeons Discipline Tribunal has imposed on a doctor the mandatory penalty of a reprimand and the revocation of his registration certificate for sexually assaulting three patients and making a sexual remark to another.
In College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario v. Polemidiotis, 2025 ONPSDT 19, the doctor was a registrant of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario beginning in 1996. He ran an independent medical practice in the province.
The doctor sexually assaulted three patients – TC, AF, and patient A – multiple times from 2012–17. He also made a remark of a sexual nature to patient B in 2019.
The trial court found the doctor guilty and convicted him of sexual assault under s. 271 of the Criminal Code, 1985. It sentenced him to three-and-a-half years of imprisonment.
In 2024, the Ontario Court of Appeal dismissed the doctor’s appeal and upheld the trial judge’s findings.
Penalty imposed
The Ontario Physicians and Surgeons Discipline Tribunal’s panel directed the registrar to revoke the doctor’s registration certificate. The panel ordered the registrant to appear before it for a reprimand and pay the regulator $6,000 in costs.
The tribunal accepted the regulator’s unchallenged claim that the doctor committed professional misconduct based on the following grounds:
- his sexual abuse of patients A and B
- an offence relevant to his suitability to practise, specifically the judicial finding of guilt for his sexual assault of TC, AF, and patient A
- disgraceful, dishonourable, or unprofessional conduct regarding TC, AF, and patients A and B
- conduct unbecoming of a physician concerning all four patients
The tribunal reached its conclusion in this case based on the courts’ findings in the criminal proceedings against the doctor and a statement of uncontested facts relating to patients A and B.
First, the tribunal determined that the doctor sexually abused those two patients as defined by s. 1(3) of the Health Professions Procedural Code, schedule 2 of Ontario’s Regulated Health Professions Act, 1991. The tribunal found that his acts constituted professional misconduct under s. 51(1)(b.1) of the Health Professions Procedural Code.
Regarding patient A, the tribunal said the doctor engaged in egregious and persistent verbal and physical conduct consisting of sexual relations, touching, behaviour, or remarks. The tribunal added that the doctor made a sexual remark to patient B.
Second, the tribunal held that the doctor committed an offence pertinent to his suitability as a medical professional and engaged in professional misconduct under s. 51(1)(a) of the Health Professions Procedural Code.
The tribunal noted that the trial court found the doctor guilty and convicted him on three counts of sexual assault, an offence under O. Reg. 262/18.
Next, the tribunal saw professional misconduct in the doctor’s sexual assault of three patients and his sexual abuse of patients A and B – acts amounting to disgraceful, dishonourable, or unprofessional conduct under paragraph 1(1)33 of Professional Misconduct, O. Reg. 856/93, and conduct unbecoming of a physician under paragraph 1(1)34 of the same regulation.
The tribunal then expounded on the proper penalty. The tribunal noted that s. 51(5)3(vi) of the Health Professions Procedural Code made a reprimand mandatory in sexual abuse cases and made a revocation mandatory if such abuse included sexual touching of a patient’s breasts.
The tribunal said that the doctor committed these acts against patient A. The tribunal added that the doctor’s three sexual assault convictions also made a reprimand and revocation mandatory under s. 51(5.2)(a) of the Health Professions Procedural Code.
The tribunal noted that the three patients whom the doctor sexually assaulted offered victim impact statements, claiming that his conduct caused emotional, professional, and financial suffering.
The statements alleged that the patients experienced anger, rage, anxiety, depression, nightmares, loss of work, distance from family and friends, and a sense of feeling unsafe in their own neighbourhoods.
“Your lack of professional integrity, the criminal convictions made against you, and the sexual abuse of patients undermine the trust our society places in all physicians and will not be tolerated,” the panel said when delivering the reprimand to the doctor.
