Why is it that some of the details in the CBC story on Dr. Sean Buckingham's future as a doctor don't match the description at vocm.com?
On Tuesday, CBC reported:
Buckingham's future medical career will be determined by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Newfoundland and Labrador, which said after a jury convicted Buckingham in December that it would launch an automatic review of his medical privileges.
Buckingham voluntarily surrendered his licence in 2005, soon after he was arrested during a Royal Newfoundland Constabulary raid on his home.
The college is not expected to call a panel to consider Buckingham's licence in the immediate future.
Yet, vocm.com gives the story a little differently:
Dr. Sean Buckingham's future in medicine is now in the hands of the College of Physicians and Surgeons Complaints Authorization Committee. He was sentenced to 7 years in prison this week on charges of sexual assault and trafficking in prescription drugs. Buckingham had surrendered his medical licence back in 2005 when he was arrested by the RNC. The college says the matter is now being dealt with as an allegation under the Medical Act.
Under the Medical Act, 2005 a conviction in criminal court becomes a prima facie allegation against the medical practitioner. Handled in the usual way, it would proceed to the Complaints Authorization Committee which will, as the name implies, review the information and authorize a complaint to proceed to a discipline hearing if that's what the case merits.
That's a feature of the revised legislation that makes the College's job easier. In the old days, the medical board would have to start its own, separate investigation and collect information as if the case was new. Now the case can be handled somewhat more expeditiously than it would have once upon a time.
But, if the case is before the Complaints Authorization Committee already, as vocm.com gives it, then the CBC story doesn't make sense when it says the College isn't expected to call a panel to consider the status of Buckingham's license. The CAC meets fairly regularly and it would be considered a "panel' in the ordinary meaning of the term. It hears an allegation after an investigation has been conducted by College staff.
So which is it?
And while we're at it, Buckingham surrendered his license in 2005, but both stories suggest he did so willingly and, in the case of the CBC story using the word "shortly" is accurate but doesn't describe the sense at the time. In the interests of disclosure, the College was a client of your humble e-scribbler at the time.
It took a few weeks, if memory serves and in the end required some fairly clear public indications from what was then the medical board under the old medical act that if he didn't hand the license over, then the Board was prepared to take it. The board started an investigation into the new allegations at the time Buckingham was arrested in order to be prepared to have a discipline hearing under the process at the time into the status of his license.
Presumably the information collected in 2005 has been held in abeyance ever since so the process two and a half years later should be fairly straightforward (as suggested by vocm.com). It shouldn't take a while, as suggested by the CBC story.
So which is it?
-srbp-
