Swift Current doctor reprimanded for threatening co-worker at hospital

A Swift Current, Sask., doctor admits there is no way to justify a series of threatening emails he sent to a fellow doctor last year.

Dr. Boniface Lubega sent the seven emails in a single day last September. In them, he described his colleague as "worse than feces" and "addicted to idiocy."

Then he threatened to break every bone in his colleague's body and said that he could beat him to death.

Lubega appeared in front of a disciplinary committee Friday morning at the Saskatchewan College of Physicians and Surgeons office in Saskatoon.

The committee formally reprimanded Lubega and ordered that he take an ethics course, but it did not suspend him from practising, or impose a financial penalty beyond covering the hearing costs.

Dispute between doctors

"There was also a background of a dispute between the two physicians related to a number of different practice issues. That's what it appears primarily led to the conduct that we are addressing here," said College legal counsel Bryan Salte.

"Without question they were quite disturbing. There's a lot of things that a council has to consider when it's trying to determine what the appropriate penalty is. One of those is upholding the reputation of the profession."

The 63-year-old anesthetist had already been suspended by Cypress Hospital after sending the threatening emails.