Dentist Bobby Rishiraj suspended, fined after leaving patient with severe brain damage
Patient suffered heart attack after receiving deep sedation from dentist not qualified to administer it
A B.C. dentist has had his licence suspended for three months and will have to pay more than $100,000 in fines after he administered deep sedation that led to a heart attack that left a patient with severe brain damage.
The College of Dental Surgeons of B.C. (CDSBC) issued its penalty decision on Oct. 19, but first reviewed Dr. Bobby Rishiraj's case in November 2014. The College allowed him to continue practising as an oral surgeon in Kamloops until it held the penalty hearing in October.
Rishiraj runs a private clinic known as the Kamloops Oral Surgery and Implant Centre.
Other penalties include a reprimand and the completion of a multi-day ethics course.
College describes case as tragedy
In its July ruling, the College's panel found Rishiraj was only authorized to provide moderate sedation when a patient came to see him in November 2012 to have her wisdom teeth removed.
Instead, it said, Rishiraj administered deep sedation without following the proper medical procedures for this type of drug.
When things began to go wrong, the dentist failed to recognize "in a timely way" that his patient was having a heart attack, according to the panel. As a result, resuscitation was delayed.
The panel also said Rishiraj ran his practice to promote "efficiencies" by treating as many patients in as short a time as possible and failed to adequately monitor patients that were under sedation.
In a statement, the college's CEO Jerome Marburg described the case as a tragedy.