Doc Rod loses medical licence for fondling, stripping female patients
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Barrie dermatologist Dr. Rod Kunynetz has lost his licence to practise medicine because of his breast fondling and unprofessional behaviour towards female patients, including abruptly stripping them, the College of Physicians and Surgeons ruled Tuesday.
“Revocation is the only penalty which meets the objectives of public protection and maintaining public confidence in the College’s ability to govern the profession…it is so ordered,” the decision stated.
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College prosecutor Carolyn Silver argued that revocation was appropriate for Dr. Kunynetz’s unprofessional behaviour and clinically unjustified breast touching.
“The panel agreed that the penalty the prosecutors requested was warranted in this case,” said Silver. “Under the legislation, he must wait five years before he can apply to be reinstated.”
The panel ruled that “the cumulative effect of Dr. Kunynetz’s misconduct, including both sexual abuse and disgraceful and unprofessional conduct” would undermine trust in the medical profession.
“The finding of unprofessional behaviour related to both Dr. Kunynetz allowing his lower abdomen to press into the thighs of female patients and to his abruptly and without explanation or apology removing clothing covering sensitive areas of the patient’s body,” the decision stated.
Patients testified that his actions “had devastating adverse consequences, including shock, feelings of misbelief, disgust and degradation,” the college stated.
Last March, the committee decided that Kunynetz, 65, rubbed a few patients the wrong way — and fondled one patient’s breasts in 2008 — but he was cleared of the most serious genital rubbing allegation.
Dr. Kunynetz fondled one patient’s breasts and stripped two other patients of their clothing without warning or consent, the committee concluded.
But the most shocking allegations that he deliberately rubbed his genitalia against two patients’ thighs during examinations were not proved, the decision stated.
Kunynetz had a two-fold defence. First, he said he did nothing of a sexual nature to any patients.
Secondly, the doctor asserted his enormous pannus — his overhanging belly that drapes over his undersized manhood like an apron — would have made it impossible for any patient to feel his genitalia as he examined them.
The decision rejected his large pannus-small penis defence.
“The committee concluded that the impossibility of contact between the doctor’s penis and a patient’s skin (through clothing) was not established,” the decision stated.
“The committee didn’t find that there was intentional touching of Dr. Kunynetz’s genitalia against the body of Patients C and D,” stated the decision.
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