Bad MD Files: Disciplined and Convicted Physicians
Dr. Ravi Devgan
Stripped of his licence in 2003 for preying on terminally ill cancer patients with unproven Carnivora treatments, Devgan kept practising unlicensed — defrauding a Wallaceburg Mennonite immigrant family with bogus sheep-foetus injections for their disabled twin sons, and running a separate prescription-drug diversion ring. Died in custody in 2009.
Dr. Charles Nicholas Rathé
A Belle River family doctor disciplined in 2006 for abusing patients and college staff during an opioid relapse — then, in a second and far more serious case, had his licence permanently revoked in 2012 after being found to have sexually abused a patient.
Dr. Ronald Wilson
A Toronto neurologist whose EEG clinics — through a technician's reused, unsterilized needle electrodes — caused Canada's largest hepatitis B outbreak linked to a medical clinic. A $27.5-million settlement, a licence revocation, and a court-ordered reduction to a two-year suspension followed.
Dr. Mario Cauchi
A London, Ontario cosmetic surgeon twice disciplined by the CPSO — first for OHIP billing fraud, then for falsifying a liposuction patient's medical records after she sued him — before resigning from the College in 2020 amid a new investigation.
Dr. Anthony (Tony) DeLuco
A Sault Ste. Marie family doctor and former Ontario Medical Association section chair who lost his licence in 2005 after a College panel found he had sexually abused two patients.
Dr. Jayant Patel — "Dr. Death"
Barred from surgery in New York and Oregon, Patel used misleading references to land a director-of-surgery post at a rural Australian hospital, where he was linked to as many as 87 deaths. A manslaughter conviction was later overturned by Australia's High Court; he ultimately pleaded guilty only to fraud.
Dr. Richard Nanka-Bruce
A Sudbury family physician convicted in 2006 of sexually and indecently assaulting patients under the guise of clinical examinations spanning more than two decades, some victims as young as 15.
Dr. Pradeep Kumar Verma
Lost his licence in British Columbia in 1993 after a fraud and narcotics investigation — then was granted a new licence in Ontario, where he opened Kitchener-Waterloo clinics, faced further narcotics-trafficking charges, and was ultimately found to have sexually assaulted patients, losing his Ontario licence in 2003. Includes a firsthand account from Dr. Terry Polevoy, who worked alongside Verma and helped bring the case to light.
Dr. Akhil Bansal
An Indian-trained physician and Temple University MBA student who ran a Philadelphia-based international Internet pharmacy ring, smuggling millions of prescription pills from India and selling them to tens of thousands of Americans without prescriptions. Sentenced to 30 years in federal prison.
Dr. Norman Barwin
An Order of Canada recipient and once-celebrated Ottawa fertility doctor who secretly used his own sperm — and the wrong donor sperm — to inseminate patients over roughly four decades, producing at least 17 genetically confirmed "Barwin babies." Stripped of his honour, his licence revoked in 2019, and the subject of a landmark $13.375-million class-action settlement.
Dr. Charles Smith
Once considered Canada's leading expert in pediatric forensic pathology, Smith's flawed and overreaching autopsy testimony helped send at least 13 innocent parents and caregivers to prison. The Goudge Inquiry exposed the scale of his errors; his licence was revoked in 2011.
Dr. Gideon Koren
Founder of the Motherisk Program at Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children, whose hair-testing lab produced drug and alcohol results relied on in thousands of child-protection and criminal cases — before an independent judicial review found the testing "inadequate and unreliable." Years earlier, Koren had also anonymously smeared a whistleblowing colleague and was kept on staff regardless. Relinquished his Ontario licence in 2019; dozens of lawsuits remain active.
Dr. Ranjit Chandra
Once celebrated as the "father of nutritional immunology" at Memorial University, Chandra fabricated data across decades of infant-formula and vitamin research. The university found scientific misconduct in a 1994 investigation and buried the report for over a decade. Exposed by CBC, stripped of the Order of Canada in 2016, and ordered to pay $1.6 million after losing a libel suit against the broadcaster.
Dr. Roger Poisson
A Université de Montréal surgeon who kept two sets of patient files — one "true," one "false" — to enroll ineligible women in landmark international breast cancer trials over nearly a decade. Triggered a U.S. congressional investigation and the forced resignation of the trial network's own director.
Dr. Stanley Dobrowolski
A psychiatrist at Western University's Student Health Services who abused female student patients, then moved his practice to his home basement and kept practising for two more decades — surviving four separate CPSO discipline hearings before a criminal conviction and ~10,000 secret photos/videos of patients finally ended his career. Licence revoked in 2015, three decades after the earliest complaints.
Dr. Nasreen Roberts
Former division chair of child psychiatry at Queen's University and a psychiatrist at Kingston Health Sciences Centre, charged in 2020 over a sexual relationship with a former patient dating to the 1990s in Calgary. Relinquished her Ontario licence in 2021 and pleaded guilty to sexual assault the same year.
Dr. Rosemary Arnold
A Kitchener family doctor at 403 Highland Road W. found guilty of professional misconduct and incompetence in 1995 over falsified prescription records and improper narcotics prescribing — permanently losing her narcotics privileges. Her practice is also where Dr. Pradeep Kumar Verma (see above) first worked in Kitchener-Waterloo before opening his own clinics.
Dr. Jarir Nakouzi
A Bridgeport internist with oncology training who told the husband of a woman dying of metastatic breast cancer that he could cure her — then charged more than $40,000 for homeopathy, supplements and “bioresonance”. She died in 2007. In 2011 the Connecticut Medical Examining Board put him on two years' probation, fined him $5,000, and barred him from skin-resistance devices and unproven cancer treatment.
Dr. Roy E. Kerry
An ear, nose and throat specialist turned “integrative” practitioner in whose office five-year-old Abubakar Tariq Nadama, who had autism, died of cardiac arrest in 2005 during an intravenous push of disodium EDTA. Criminal charges of involuntary manslaughter were dropped in 2008. In 2009 the Pennsylvania State Board of Medicine suspended his licence, with six months active and probation to follow, and barred him from giving IV chelation to minors.
Dr. Rashid Buttar
A Huntersville osteopath who sold his own “transdermal” chelation cream to the parents of autistic children and weeks of IV treatments to advanced cancer patients. In 2008 a board panel found he exploited patients with exorbitant fees for unproven therapies and recommended barring him from treating children or cancer patients; in 2010 the North Carolina Medical Board settled for a reprimand. A second reprimand followed. In 2021 he was named one of the “Disinformation Dozen”. Died 2023.
Dr. Simone Gold
Founder of America's Frontline Doctors, which put hydroxychloroquine on millions of screens in July 2020. She entered the Capitol on 6 January 2021, pleaded guilty, served 60 days and was pardoned in 2025. Her own organization sued her over its funds. In February 2024 the Medical Board of California publicly reprimanded her; Florida had licensed her in 2022, four days before her sentence began.
Dr. Ayokunle Fagbemigun
A north Etobicoke family physician who billed OHIP for roughly 42,000 tests and procedures that were never performed — including drug tests on a nine-year-old. In 2022 the Ontario Physicians and Surgeons Discipline Tribunal revoked his registration and fined him $35,000, but had no power to order the money repaid.
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