As he turns the final page on a dramatic chapter of his life to a more hopeful future, Darryl Gebien has many regrets.
The former Barrie emergency doctor, who was imprisoned for writing fake prescriptions and trafficking in drugs to feed his drug habit, will be allowed to practise medicine again after he serves a 14-month suspension, the College of Physicians and Surgeons announced this week after finding him guilty of professional misconduct.
“I’ll have lots of time on my hands. It’s a shame, though, there’s two crises going on right now,” he said, referring to COVID-19 and opioid addictions, adding he wishes he could be helping right now. “I’d love to get involved in addiction medicine.”
Since leaving the Barrie hospital, Gebien started a business in balcony and outdoor flooring in Toronto, where he now lives, and has one full-time employee.
He is also the lead plaintiff in a proposed $1.1-billion class-action lawsuit targeting almost two dozen Canadian drug makers on behalf of patients who became addicted to prescribed opioids.
While working at Royal Victoria Regional Health Centre (RVH) for two years, Gebien, now 49, developed an opioid addiction following an old back injury for which he was initially prescribed Percocet.
According to his profession’s governing body, Gebien faked prescriptions in colleagues’ names, using family and friends to get the drugs. He also used his position of authority over three RVH employees to help get him Fentanyl patches through fake prescriptions in the fall of 2014.
Among Gebien’s big regrets is that all three ultimately lost their jobs. He said their names became public when he pleaded guilty and they were subsequently fired.
“I basically coerced three people into filling prescriptions that were bogus, written in their names, for them to pick up the prescription,” said Gebien. “I’m the one who’s at fault here. I’m the one who abused my position of authority to have a little bit of power over them to pressure them into filling the prescriptions. So I feel terrible.”
Gebien said he attended the grievance hearing of one who was a union member, which he said was decided in her favour. The other two weren’t protected by a union. He says one has forgiven him and the other continues to struggle.
He also regrets that he can’t see his children every day. After his divorce, his ex-wife took them back to New Brunswick, her home province, so he doesn’t see them frequently, although he says he chats with them daily.
“The biggest loss in all this is my children don’t have their father in their daily lives,” he said, adding he tried to explain the situation to his eight-year-old son. “I apologized to him yesterday that he lives there because of my illness, that’s the way I put it to him”
Gebien had stopped practising medicine by Nov. 1, 2014 and two days later he was charged by Barrie police. In December 2016 he pleaded guilty to forging a medical prescription and trafficking in Fentanyl by allowing others to keep Fentanyl patches in return for providing him with the remaining patches.
In April 2017, he was handed a two-year prison sentence — for which he served eight months — along with three years’ probation.
By 2015, Gebien had started a substance dependence monitoring contract with the Ontario Medical Association’s Physician Health Program.
He was also outspoken, describing his addiction and experience to news media and presenting at a variety of events.
“It was difficult at first. I was in shatters after being arrested and set on bail,” he said.
Incarceration left him feeling worthless and marginalized, no longer a contributor to society. He concentrated on his recovery, going to meetings daily for a year and learning to use the tools of recovery, which he discovered were also the key to happiness.
“I was in a unique position because of the lived experience and being a physician as well,” he said. “I would share my story, through tons of public speaking talks, to anyone who wanted to listen.”
In finding Gebien guilty of professional misconduct, a discipline committee of the College of Physicians and Surgeons decided against the college’s recommendation to revoke Gebien’s licence and instead imposed the suspension.
“While Dr. Gebien’s conduct was egregious, it occurred during a period of addiction, and Dr. Gebien has shown significant ability to rehabilitate since that time. There is no reason for the committee to doubt that Dr. Gebien’s positive rehabilitation will continue,” the committee determined in its decision released this week.
In its written reasons, the committee concluded that a 14-month suspension ensures public protection by allowing Gebien to demonstrate long-term remission and continue rehabilitation.
Gebien was also banned from prescribing controlled substances.
Although there was discussion that the prescription ban would make his return to work in an emergency department difficult, the committee wrote that it wouldn’t inhibit his plan to develop a practice treating patients with addictive disorders. Gebien said he plans to slowly gravitate back to emergency medicine as well.
The committee granted the college’s request to “fully monitor” Gebien if he returned to practising medicine and sharing information with Ontario Medical Association’s Physician Health Program, which would be responsible for monitoring his progress and ensuring that he remains in remission and that he not represent a threat to the public.
Gebien was also ordered to pay $20,740 in costs.
The discipline committee noted he has no prior discipline history with the college, is a member of a weekly online Caduceus group for health-care professionals, which offers peer support, and that he had back surgery last September.
Gebien is grateful to the college for its approach and believes that it should serve as a model.
“They clearly do understand that the decisions were made on the throes of addiction, they were skewed because of my addiction. I was sick and they understand that,” he said. “They should serve as a model for other regulatory bodies out there.
“There’s still a lot of work to be done. People treat addiction as a moral failure…. I went to prison, what did that accomplish?”
