A disgraced weight-loss doctor found guilty of having sex with his “vulnerable” patients was scathingly reprimanded Monday by Ontario’s governing body of doctors.
“Disgraceful,” “reprehensible,” and “dishonourable,” were just a few adjectives used by a disciplinary panel at the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario Monday afternoon to formally reprimand Dr. Jacobo Joffe.
The bariatric surgeon was found guilty in 2008 by the college of carrying on explicit sexual relationships with four female patients — two of them sisters.
All four were being treated for obesity.
“Patients require from (doctors) a sense of safety,” said the college’s Dr. Mark Gable, who called Joffe “self-serving” by taking advantage of “vulnerable” patients. “All in all, you have behaved shamefully ... You remain in the face of the profession and the public a disgrace.”
Joffe, bearded, bespectacled and wearing a brown sport coat and dark slacks, stood in silence before the three-member panel.
After the proceedings, Joffe, another male, and a female fled to a room where they remained for over an hour while media waited outside. It was only after college staff asked Joffe and the others to leave that they finally emerged from the College-Bay Sts.-area building.
Joffe, a once-married father of four, said nothing as he was ushered into a waiting car.
It was in December of 2008 that Joffe, after pleading no contest to the allegations, was stripped of his licence to practice medicine in Ontario and fined over $40,000 by the college. All of Canada’s provinces and territories were notified of the verdict, as were American and some international regulatory medical bodies, according to the college’s Kathryn Clarke.
Clarke said the last she’d heard, Joffe was practicing bariatrics in Mexico, the country where he first studied medicine.
Joffe’s rampage of hugging, kissing, fondling and sexual acts took place from 1999 to 2006.
During this time, Joffe would have sex with the patients in various locations, including his Scarborough office, a hospital, the patients’ homes and in hotels.
In once case, he reportedly had a threesome with the two sisters at a hotel. In at least one case, he had asked a patient to buy “illicit drugs.”
In all four cases, according to college documents, Joffe “took steps to conceal his relationship” with the patients for fear of “professional consequences.”
The identities of the four patients are covered by a publication ban.
