Committee: Discipline
Decision Date: 29 Nov 2016
Summary:
On November 29, 2016, the Discipline Committee of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario found that Dr. Wing-Tai Fung committed an act of professional misconduct in that he has been found guilty of an offence that is relevant to his suitability to practise and in that the governing body of a health profession in a jurisdiction other than Ontario has found that he committed an act of professional misconduct that would, in the opinion of the panel, be an act of misconduct as defined in the regulations.
Dr. Fung, a family physician, practised in Iowa from 1992 to 2008. Following his retirement from his Iowa practice in 2008, he returned to Ontario where he worked until 2014.
On March 27, 2015, Dr. Fung pled guilty in the District Court of Iowa in and for Shelby County to the charge of Assault with Intent to Commit Sexual Abuse and Indecent Contact with a Child.
On that day, he received a two year suspended sentence, was ordered to register as a sex offender, to immediately surrender his license to practise medicine, and to submit to DNA profiling. Dr. Fung was also ordered to enter into a plan of restitution for the payment of all court costs, fines, and victim restitution.
The factual basis of the plea and sentence was an admission by Dr. Fung that he touched a ten- year-old patient on her inner thigh, during a medical appointment in January 1999, with the purpose of arousing himself. Dr. Fung was 66 years old at the time of the offence.
The Iowa State Board of Medicine took action on the basis of the criminal finding. Dr. Fung agreed to the voluntary surrender of his licence. The Board delivered a citation and warning and imposed a $10,000.00 civil penalty on Dr. Fung.
PENALTY
On November 29, 2016, the Discipline Committee ordered and directed that:
The Registrar revoke Dr. Fung’s certificate of registration, effective immediately.
- Dr. Fung appear before the panel to be reprimanded.
- Dr. Fung pay costs to the College in the amount of $5,000.00 within thirty (30) days from the date of this Order.