Doctors can be dick-heads too!

Pathologist made threat over ticket

"Constable testifies that Charles Smith said he would withhold services from Cobourg area"

TORONTO — A furious Charles Smith threatened to cut off forensic services for an entire region of Ontario out of spite after a local police officer gave him a speeding ticket, the Goudge Commission heard yesterday.

The bizarre incident occurred on Nov. 9, 2002, when Dr. Smith - driving his Ford Explorer with personalized licence plates that read "Coronr" - was stopped on Highway 401 near Cobourg for driving 136 kilometres an hour in a 100-kilometre-an-hour zone.

"Did you not see my licence plate? Do you know who I am?" Ontario Provincial Police Constable Nancy Wagner quoted Dr. Smith as saying. "I am the head of pediatric forensic pathology for this province."

"Next time Cobourg needs forensics on a child, they won't get it from our office," she quoted the pathologist, now 57, as saying.

The incident - detailed immediately afterward in a letter of complaint from OPP Superintendent Jim Szarka to former chief coroner James Young - was revealed at the inquiry yesterday by Peter Wardle, a lawyer for several families that are suing Dr. Smith over autopsy mistakes that led to their being charged in the deaths of their children.

According to Supt. Szarka, Constable Wagner reported that she challenged Dr. Smith: "So, you are denying Cobourg your services because you got a speeding ticket? You are going to risk an investigation for a family and child because you got a speeding ticket?"

Dr. Smith allegedly nodded his head and said yes. "I do not think I need to comment further about the seriousness of the matter," Supt. Szarka concluded in his letter.

Asked yesterday how he reacted to the letter, Dr. Young testified that he told Dr. Smith he had been wrong, and then sent a letter to Supt. Szarka apologizing on behalf of his star pathologist.

At the time of the incident, Dr. Smith had been suspended from conducting autopsies in suspicious deaths because of the growing controversy about his competency. However, he was still the head of two important committees that oversaw pediatric deaths.

Mr. Wardle attacked Dr. Young yesterday for permitting Dr. Smith to carry on in this senior capacity after he had issued such an irresponsible threat.

Dr. Smith's titles and committee responsibilities were "meaningless" in the grand scheme of things, Dr. Young replied. He also said that Dr. Smith was no longer in a position to do anyone any harm.

globeandmail

"Aren't we just glad that this Doctor won't be dealing with "live" patients?!
He must have thought he was an untouchable.
If this isn't a cry for better screening......................................."