A B.C. doctor serving a northern Indigenous community is claiming UBC’s medical school’s alleged incompetence has restricted his ability to practice medicine.
Dr. Kante Easley is a general medical practitioner in Hazelton, where he serves a mostly Indigenous population with limited emergency obstetrical support.
In a May 6 B.C. Supreme Court notice of civil claim, Easley said that before applying to a UBC Department of Family Medicine course for enhanced obstetrical surgical skills, he was competent to perform complex childbirths.
That, his claim said, “was of paramount importance to the Hazelton community given the limited availability of local health-care professionals who are competent to conduct such procedures.”
On May 18, 2021, Easley received a letter from UBC offering him a position in the program.
Part of his reasons for enrolling in the program, the claim said, was for Easley to better serve his community with improved emergency and scheduled C-sections for low-risk patients, and additional non-surgical obstetrical support to midwives in the community.
The claim said participants would be given ongoing informal as well as formal feedback on their performance.
It further claimed that if performance reviews identified issues, steps would be taken to “to develop a remediation plan or to consider probation.”
“During his one, three and five month reviews, Dr. Easley was not informed of material incompetencies threatening his success in the program. Dr. Easley was informed of the areas in which he was excelling, and was provided with constructive feedback. At no point during the one, three, and five month evaluations were concerns raised about Dr. Easley’s professionalism,” the claim said.
The court documents said Easley became ill shortly before the end of the program.
“He promptly notified his attending physician and ensured that his staff were notified of his inability to attend his scheduled shifts on June 23, 2022 and June 26, 2022,” the claim said.
Easley’s final review was scheduled for June 22, 2022 but was rescheduled because evaluator Dr. Maged Bahket failed to attend the meeting, the claim said.
Easley’s final review took place on June 28, 2022, three days before the program’s end.
It was there Bahket allegedly raised, for the first time, a number of issues with Easley’s competencies not brought up in prior evaluations. Easley was allegedly advised he had not achieved the competencies required to successfully complete the program and would need several months of additional training.
Easley was allegedly told he had only achieved competencies in two out of 10 areas.
The claim said vacuum deliveries of babies was an optional competency in which he had not enrolled as it was a procedure he was already doing and claimed he was competent in.
“As a result, no one at UBC had any evidence upon which to assess Dr. Easley’s competency in this area,” the claim said. “Nevertheless, and despite this lack of evidence, the (clinical competency committee) found he was not competent to perform vacuum deliveries.”
The suit alleges UBC breached its contract for the program, failed to provide notification of performance issues, arbitrarily found Easley was not competent in vacuum deliveries, and failed to document concerns among other issues.
The claim also asserts UBC made defamatory statements about Easley.
UBC spokesman Matthew Ramsey said the university could not comment as the matter is before the courts
None of the allegations have been proven in court.
