 | |
| Formation | 1905 |
|---|---|
| Type | Regulatory college |
Region served | Alberta |
| Website | www |
The College of Physicians & Surgeons of Alberta (CPSA) is a regulatory college in the Canadian province of Alberta. Its stated purpose is to "register physicians and issue medical practice permits, develop and administer standards of practice and conduct, and investigate and resolve physician-related complaints". CPSA also "provides leadership and direction on health and related policy issues". [1]
While still part of the Northwest Territories, the NWT Medical Ordinance regulated the medical profession in the geographic regions that became the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan. Dr. James D. Lafferty served as NWT Medical Ordinance registrar from 1901 until 1905. [3]
On July 20, 1905, the Parliament of Canada passed the Alberta Act through which Alberta became a province of the Dominion of Canada. [4] According to the Alberta Act, existing societies or associations that regulated the medical profession, dentistry, pharmaceutical chemistry and others, under the Northwest Territories (NWT) Medical Ordinance, were dissolved. [4]
On May 9, 1906, the Alberta Medical Profession Act was passed in the newly formed Alberta legislature. Lafferty had drafted the medical acts for both newly formed provinces—Alberta and Saskatchewan. [3]
In 1906, the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta (CPSA) was founded in Calgary. [2] The Canadian Medical Association's Alberta Division was formed later in the same year. [2] The Alberta Division is now known as the Alberta Medical Association. AMA served as the educational body that also worked collaboratively with CPSA on issues such as standards of medical care. [2]
On October 18, 1906, the newly elected Medical Council of Alberta appointed Lafferty as registrar. [3] Dr. William A. Lincoln became a member of the Alberta Medical Association and was appointed secretary-treasurer in 1908. [3]
The case of Aubrey Levin attracted international media attention, following the suspension of Levin's license by CPSA in March 2010. [5] [6] Levin, who has been identified as an alleged abuser of human rights for his role as Chief psychiatrist and team leader at South African Defence Force (SADF)'s drug rehabilitation program near Pretoria in the 1970s, [7] [8] was "convicted of sexual assaulting three of his patients [in Alberta] between 2008 and 2010." [5] [9] [10] South Africa's post apartheid era, Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), had investigated the controversial nature of an SADF project that Levin ran while he was an SADF Colonel—The Aversion Project. [11] [12] Levin emigrated to Canada in the late 1990s and refused to return to testify before the TRC. [5] Levin denied that he had "any sexual motive or basis for [his] sexual offences" and that he was not "aware that what he was doing was a criminal act in Canada as it's allowed in his home country of South Africa." [9]
On October 16, 2020 Wynand Wessels, a white orthopedic surgeon, told a CPSA disciplinary hearing that he had "tied a noose and taped it to the door" of an operating room at Queen Elizabeth II Hospital Grande Prairie, Alberta in June 24, 2016. [13] Wessels denied that the noose had targeted a black surgical assistant—originally from Nigeria—who worked in that operating room. [13] Wessels said that he grew up in South Africa during the apartheid era without a free press, and was not aware of the racial connotations associated with the noose and lynching in North America. [13] Those interviewed for a July 3, 2020 CBC News report said that the incident had been reported in June 2014, and complaints made since then, but CPSA, the Alberta Health Services (AHS), and Tyler Shandro, Alberta's health minister had not followed through. [14] On December 6, 2021 Wessels was found guilty of unprofessional conduct by an independent hearings tribunal and handed a 4 month suspension. [15]
James Delamere Lafferty was a Canadian physician and politician. Lafferty served as Registrar for the Northwest Territories Medical Ordinance regulator to professionalize the practice of medicine. he was actively involved in establishing the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta and the Canadian Medical Association's Alberta Division, which was later known as the Alberta Medical Association. He served one term as the fifth mayor of Calgary from January 1890 to January 1891.
David Richard Swann is a Canadian medical doctor and politician. He was the leader of the Alberta Liberal Party and Leader of the Opposition in the Alberta Legislature from December 2008 until resigning as party leader in September 2011. He returned as interim leader of the Alberta Liberal Party on 1 February 2015, following the resignation of Raj Sherman and led the party through the 2015 provincial election.
The South African Defence Force (SADF) comprised the armed forces of South Africa from 1957 until 1994. Shortly before the state reconstituted itself as a republic in 1961, the former Union Defence Force was officially succeeded by the SADF, which was established by the Defence Act of 1957. The SADF, in turn, was superseded by the South African National Defence Force in 1994.
Wouter Basson is a South African cardiologist and former head of the country's secret chemical and biological warfare project, Project Coast, during the apartheid era. Nicknamed "Dr. Death" by the press for his alleged actions in apartheid South Africa, Basson was acquitted in 2002 of 67 charges, after having been suspended from his military post with full pay in 1999.
Elections NWT is an independent, non-partisan public agency responsible for the administration of territorial general elections, by-elections, and plebiscites in accordance with the Elections and Plebiscites Act. Elections NWT is headed by the Chief Electoral Officer, an officer of the Legislative Assembly of the Northwest Territories.
The Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences is one of the constituent faculties of McGill University. It was established in 1829 after the Montreal Medical Institution was incorporated into McGill College as the college's first faculty; it was the first medical faculty to be established in Canada. The Faculty awarded McGill's first degree, and Canada's first medical degree to William Leslie Logie in 1833.
Calgary currently has four major adult acute care hospitals; the Foothills Medical Centre, the Peter Lougheed Centre, the Rockyview General Hospital and the South Health Campus and a children's acute care hospital; Alberta Children's Hospital, all running under the auspices of Alberta Health Services, the single provincial health authority for the province, that delivers medical care on behalf of the Ministry of Health. The medical helicopters operate under the auspices of the Shock Trauma Air Rescue Society. The Sheldon M. Chumir Centre, the Richmond Road Diagnostic and Treatment Centre, Libin Cardiovascular Institute of Alberta, Tom Baker Cancer Centre, Grace Women's Health Centre, Carewest, and the Glenmore Auxiliary Hospital are other medical facilities operating in the city, each providing a variety of care. The University of Calgary Medical Clinic also operates in partnership with the Calgary Health Region, and is located at the Foothills Medical Centre. The four largest Calgary hospitals have a combined total of more than 2,164 beds, and employ over 11,500 people.
Calgary was a territorial electoral district for the Legislative Assembly of Northwest Territories, Canada.
Eldon R. Smith OC, FRCPC is a Canadian cardiologist who is the Chair of the Strategic Advisory Board of the Libin Cardiovascular Institute of Alberta (LCIA). He has been Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Calgary and President for both the Canadian Cardiovascular Society and the Association of Canadian Medical Colleges. Smith was appointed to the Board of Alberta Health Services.
Alison Merrilla Redford is a Canadian lawyer and former politician. She was the 14th premier of Alberta, having served in this capacity from October 7, 2011, to March 23, 2014. Redford was born in Kitimat, British Columbia and grew up all over Canada and overseas before settling in Calgary as a teenager.
Ivan Peter Toms was a South African physician, who battled the Apartheid era government as a prominent anti-Apartheid and anti-conscription activist. He opposed conscription by the South African Defence Force, and was a co-founder of the End Conscription Campaign. He ran a clinic in the Crossroads shanty town where he was the only physician for 60,000 people. He went on a hunger strike in 1985 after the government decided to bulldoze the settlement. Toms was also involved with gay rights activism in South Africa and was a founding member of the Lesbians and Gays Against Oppression. At the time of his death in 2008, Toms was serving as the Director of Health for the city of Cape Town, South Africa.
Democracy Watch, established in 1993, is a Canadian organization that advocates on democratic reform, government accountability and corporate responsibility issues.
CPSA may refer to:
The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta (CPSA) is responsible for the registration, regulation, and discipline of physicians in Alberta, Canada. It was founded in 1906 by an Act of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta. Its inaugural meeting was October 18, 1906.
Aubrey Levin is a South African-born Canadian psychiatrist and former Colonel in the South African Defence Force who used abusive procedures on homosexual army conscripts and conscientious objectors in an attempt to cure them of suspected same-sex attraction in apartheid era South Africa.
Dwight Gregory Powell is an emergency medicine physician specialist in Foothills, Alberta and a professor of family medicine and emergency medicine at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Calgary. He is also the founder and CEO of the nonprofit Shock Trauma Air Rescue Society (STARS), a helicopter-based emergency transport service in Alberta and British Columbia.
The Aversion Project was a medical torture programme in South Africa led by Aubrey Levin during apartheid. The project identified gay soldiers and conscripts who used drugs in the South African Defence Forces (SADF). Victims were forced to submit to "curing" their homosexuality because the SADF considered homosexuality to be subversive, and those who were homosexual were subject to punishment. In 1995, the South African Medical Association issued a public apology for past wrongdoings.
Tyler Shandro is a Canadian politician who served as the minister of justice and solicitor general of Alberta from February 2022 to June 2023. A member of the United Conservative Party (UCP), Shandro was elected to represent Calgary-Acadia in the Legislative Assembly of Alberta in the 2019 provincial election. He was Alberta's minister of health from 2019 to 2021, and minister of labour and immigration from 2021 until he was named justice minister in 2022. He lost re-election in the 2023 provincial election.
Alberta's Ministry of Health is a ministry of the Executive Council of Alberta whose major responsibilities include setting "policy and direction to achieve a sustainable and accountable health system to promote and protect the health of Albertans."