A Montreal doctor caught up in his lies

An emergency doctor at Fleury Hospital in Montreal has just had his right to practice revoked by the College of Physicians of Quebec. Sanjeev Sirpal, who was briefly medical director of telemedicine company Olive, lied about his academic career, during which he was notably accused of plagiarism.

Ariane Lacoursiere
The Press

In the decision of the disciplinary council of the professional order, handed down on October 11, we can read that Sanjeev Sirpal “knowingly provided the Collège des médecins du Québec at the time of his application for registration with incomplete and inaccurate information about his escapades on various American college campuses”. We talk about “misconduct, plagiarism and dismissals”.

Sanjeev Sirpal disputed the charges against him, but the disciplinary committee did not believe him. “The respondent’s testimony is a variation of implausible pretexts that evolve over time, circumstances and the interlocutors to whom it is addressed”, decide the three members of the Disciplinary Committee in their decision.

The College of Physicians had received three reports against Dr.^r Sirpal in 2020 “reporting allegations about the professional behavior of the respondent”.

The investigator who interviewed the D^r Sirpal in 2021 found that his college journey had been bumpier than he said.

The D^r Sirpal notably studied medicine at the University of Miami between 2003 and 2007. There, he was accused of plagiarism and was expelled from his study program in 2008. Questioned by investigators from the College of Physicians at this subject, Sanjeev Sirpal initially said that he had “done nothing wrong”. He then claimed that his departure was “partly” attributable to the illness of his father, who was said to have suffered from cancer and who died in 2012.

hide his past

In 2011, Sanjeev Sirpal was admitted to a doctoral program in biochemistry and molecular biology at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, but he was also expelled. Mainly for not declaring his dismissal from the University of Miami a few years earlier.

He received his MD in 2013 from Spartan Health School of Medicine in Saint Lucia. He then worked in research at the Municipal Hospital in Brampton, Ontario, from 2013 to 2015, in addition to studying at the University of Toronto until 2016.

That year, he applied for a position as a medical resident in public health at the University of Montreal. Asked at this time whether he had ever been found guilty of misconduct while studying at a post-secondary institution, Dr.^r Sirpal answered no.

Before the Disciplinary Council, he pleaded in particular that the form was not clear, did not allow for additions and that his answers were “based on his understanding of the American education system compared to that of Quebec that he knows little”. But the Disciplinary Board will not accept this explanation.

After his residency in public health, Sanjeev Sirpal did a residency in family medicine. He applied to the College of Physicians of Quebec in 2019. Again, he hid his academic background. He was until recently an emergency doctor at the Fleury hospital in Montreal. He also spoke a few times in 2021 in the media as medical director of Olive, which offers telemedicine services. Chief operating officer at Olive, Carl Guérard explains that the company was not aware of the situation and underlines that the D^r Sirpal was only “briefly” in the service of Olive in 2021.

Implausible testimony

The implausibility of several statements made by Sanjeev Sirpal is underlined in the decision of the Disciplinary Board. We note, for example, that when his father died of cancer in 2012, Sanjeev Sirpal would have requested a reduction in tasks in 2019 from the Direction of the residency program of the University of Montreal to “devote more time for his master’s degree and as a precaution for his elderly father.

This contradiction was raised by the College of Physicians, which displeased Sanjeev Sirpal who deplored “that we do not understand the importance of practices and beliefs within his community about the predominant place devoted to the figure paternal, which translates thousand-year-old traditions”.

“For cultural reasons, therefore, he implies that he did not have to reveal that his mother, after the death of his natural father in 2012, was in a relationship with another man, hence the shortcut he has borrowed in his request for relief from tasks, seven years later, in 2019, referring to his father rather than his stepfather, ”it is written. The D^r Sirpal was born in the United States to parents of Indian descent.

According to the Disciplinary Council of the College of Physicians, Sanjeev Sirpal was during his testimony “weakling”, made “countless detours, contortions and amalgams to dilute his answers instead of answering simply and clearly”. Sanjeev Sirpal has 30 days to appeal the decision.