Nature of Action: The registrant, Ian Glass, voluntarily entered into two undertaking and consent agreements with the Inquiry Committee of the College. The two consent and undertaking agreements relate to two separate complaints arising from the same underlying events.

As part of the agreements, the registrant agreed to the following terms:

1. a suspension of his registration with the College for a period of 2 days in total;
2. a formal reprimand;
3. undertakings not to repeat the conduct;
4. completion of extensive remedial education on professional ethics and boundaries; and
5. payment of a portion of the costs of the investigations in the total amount of $500.00.

Reasons: In January 2022, CMTBC received two separate complaints about Mr. Glass, which relate to the same underlying events.  

As part of the undertaking and consent agreements, Mr. Glass admitted that in January 2022, he sent a lengthy email from his work email address to approximately 205 recipients (comprised primarily of his patients), in which he stated his personal opinions on the B.C. Provincial Health Officer’s messages and public health mandates in relation to the COVID-19 vaccine. The email primarily contained criticism of a proposed mandatory COVID-19 vaccination requirement for health professionals, but also included two statements regarding the efficacy and safety of COVID-19 vaccines. In the email, the registrant identified himself as a registered massage therapist; he did not communicate that advice or recommendations on vaccination are outside of an RMT’s scope of practice.

The registrant further admitted that he accessed his clinic’s record-keeping platform to obtain the email addresses of his patients, and that when sending the email, he did not use blind carbon copy (“BCC”); rather, he used the carbon copy (“CC”) function, thereby disclosing the personal information of his patients to other individuals without consent.

One of the patients who was a recipient of the email (the “Patient”) was concerned by the disclosure of her email address to others, and she contacted both the registrant and the clinic to communicate this. The registrant proceeded to use the clinic’s database to obtain the Patient’s home address and sent the Patient flowers as an apology. The Patient had not consented to her address being used for the purpose of the registrant sending her an apology gift.

The registrant acknowledged that by engaging in the conduct described above, he contravened: section 2 of Schedule “E” to the College’s Bylaws; sections 13, 14, and 20 of the College’s Code of Ethics; and sections 1, 10, 12(c) and 13 of the College’s standard of practice on boundaries.

The Inquiry Committee is satisfied that the terms of the undertaking and consent agreements appropriately reflect the seriousness of the registrant’s admitted conduct and will protect patient safety.