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By Chris Brown

lack of skill and judgment admitted

UPDATE: City physician suspended over surgeries

Oct 27, 2020 | 10:39 AM

EDMONTON – A Medicine Hat family physician has been sanctioned by a professional tribunal after admitting to performing more than 600 procedures in unaccredited surgical facilities for 15 years. The tribunal also found two patients required surgeries following procedures they had in 2018 by the doctor.

The College of Physicians & Surgeons of Alberta (CPSA) says Dr. Adriaan Kriel will be suspended until August 2021 from practising in Alberta and ordered the doctor to pay nearly $20,000 in costs for the tribunal investigation and hearing. This after 10 charges against the family physician were sustained.

CPSA says Kriel was found to have displayed a lack of skill and judgment in his medical practice after performing an eyelid revision surgery and liposuction on the two patients.

After the June 13, 2018 eyelid revision surgery by Kriel, the patient suffered from a range of complications from generalized deformed appearance to forehead droop to loss of feeling on her forehead.

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After an Oct. 2, 2018 liposuction procedure by Kriel, the patient was seen six months later by a specialist and found to have a brown material protruding from several scars, a buried structure under the skin in addition to blotches and redness around the scars.

According to the CPSA, which regulates physicians in Alberta, Kriel wasn’t supposed to be performing any such procedures since being warned 15 years earlier.

“It’s really important that procedures that are quite serious are done in an accredited facility where there would be sufficient support to support a patient should things go wrong,” said Jessica McPhee, CPSA spokesperson. “So he agreed back in 2005 to stop doing these procedures.”

The CPSA found he continued to do so while providing false information to the regulatory body that he wasn’t.

McPhee explained Kriel would have provided information to the CPSA regarding his specialization in family medicine when he first started practising in Alberta back in 1996.

“And then would have shown that he had additional training to perform these practice interests,” said McPhee. “But it would be different than those of a plastic surgeon.”

McPhee says the public can find out what training certification physicians have through the CPSA website, “and the other step would be to ensure that these procedures of a serious nature are being performed in an accredited facility.”

Kriel admitted to the 10 CPSA charges and a joint submission was made with the CPSA on sanctions.

Note: This story and headline have been updated with corrected information about Dr. Kriel and the costs of the investigation after an update by CPSA. You can read the full updated release here.