We filed two third-party complaints with the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario, against two Recovered Memory Therapy (RMT) therapists, both doctors of medicine. One complaint is still active after we filed an appeal of the College's decision.

The first complaint was a flop. We were very inexperienced and we did it without the help of a lawyer. We did not have a lawyer the second time around, but we did much better job.

Here are a few pointers for filing complaints.

There is a certain terminology which is important. For example, the complainant has to prove that the therapist was negligent and incompetent. Both these failures may result in a disciplinary action. Another "buzz word" is professional misconduct, which, in my understanding, includes both negligence and incompetence.

Negligence means wrong diagnosis and treatment, failure to consult with other professionals when no improvement was achieved, application of unproven techniques, not informing the patient about inherent dangers, and/or not requesting informed consent.

Incompetence means belief in nonsense such as "repression" and "dissociation", MPD, SRA, etc.

At least, this is how we understand these terms and how we structured our complaint. We also examined the Medical Code of Ethics and showed where it was breached (e.g. putting one's interests ahead of the patient's).

Another "buzz" word is "standards of care". The Ontario Complaint's Committee claimed that they cannot refer the doctor to the disciplinary committee because there are no standards of care in RMT. This is an astonishing admission and we based our appeal on this; it is still pending.

For the complainant it is important to get acquainted with the rules and regulations for a given profession. For example, in Ontario, it is the Ontario Regulated Health Professions Act, which has a section on complaints. Also, it is useful to know what is the obligation of the Regulatory body (College). For example, The Ontario Act stipulates that the College should dispose of the complaint within 120 days. This is a joke. We had to wait way over a year. But at that time we did not know about our rights as complainants.

This next point is very important for a third party complaint. In the Ontario Act, there is a section dealing with third party (public-driven or College-driven, as opposed to patient-driven) complaints. If the third party is convincing enough, the College Registrar is permitted, under the Ontario Act, to appoint an investigator who goes to the doctor's office and seizes his/her files without the patient's consent. Again, when we started this process, we were not aware of this provision, actually, it was the Appeal Board panel which suggested this drastic measure. Of course, the College declined to do it, but at least the therapist was scared.

I hope that this experience helps. And I am more than willing to share details with whomever is interested.

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