Alberta cardiac surgeon Dr. Teresa Kieser makes human rights complaint

Province’s only female heart surgeon alleges years of gender-based discrimination at work

Dr. Teresa Kieser, a 70-year-old cardiac surgeon, has filed a complaint with the Alberta Human Rights Commission (AHRC), claiming damages of close to $1,000,000. She claims that she was discriminated agains based on gender and age, resulting in lost wages. Dr. Kieser made the complaint against Alberta Health Services, with whom she has contracted with as a cardiothoracic and vascular surgeon at the Foothills Medical Centre in Calgary since 1988.

Dr. Kieser is the only female cardiac surgeon in Alberta, and was the first heart surgeon at the Foothills Medical Centre.  Some of the allegations made by Dr. Kieser include:

• Being addressed by a lesser title of “coordinator” while her male peers from other specialties held the title “chief.”
• An incident when she was approached by the wife of a patient of one of her male colleagues for help in speaking to the other doctor, and after speaking with the other doctor as requested, he filed a complaint against her challenging her performance and technical abilities.
• Four separate incidents where male colleagues raised concerns about her medical skills and judgment, including allegations that she took longer than male colleagues to perform certain procedures (although the innovative technique she used is now becoming standard practice).

None of these incidents were found to be substantiated, although the most recent allegation led to the suspension of Dr. Kieser’s surgical privileges while it was investigated. The loss of her surgical privileges was the breaking point for Dr. Kieser. She decided she could no longer just put her “head down” and count on doing her work well to “save the day”; the doctor felt that she needed to pursue legal action in order to ensure the discrimination she experienced would not continue for future generations of female surgeons.

Limitation Period Concerns

Under Alberta Human Rights legislation, a complaint must be made within a year of the incident giving rise to the complaint. As such, Dr. Keiser’s long history of mistreatment cannot be considered, other than as background, by the Human Rights Commission. Only the most recent incident, which led to suspension of surgical privileges is within the limitation period.

Grounds to Support a Human Rights Complaint

• Discrimination based on gender: This is a valid ground on which a human rights complaint can be based, where an employee experiences adverse treatment in the workplace which is related to gender. For the complaint to be considered, the adverse treatment only has to be based, in part, on gender. Even if the employer had other reasons for doing what it did, if gender factored in at all, there has potentially been a violation of human rights.
• A person’s age: This is another ground on which a human rights complaint can be grounded. In one instance, a male colleague suggested that Dr. Kieser should retire when raising unfounded concerns about her abilities; this suggests that some part of the adverse treatment Dr. Kieser experienced in recent incidents was due to her age.

Takeaways for Employees

Employees who feel they are experiencing adverse treatment in the workplace, based at all on gender or age, should seek a legal opinion from Samfiru Tumarkin LLP on whether a human rights violation has occurred.  Employees should not wait to see if the situation improves, as the limitation period of one year for a human rights complaint passes very quickly.

You may be able to get compensation and your job back through the AHRC if they find that you have been discriminated against. This includes ordering the employer to pay monetary compensation for the violation itself, any lost wages that were caused by the violation, or even reinstatement into a position if a termination of employment has occurred.

Takeaways for Employers

Employers need to be keenly aware of gender discrimination in the workplace and put policies and procedures in place to ensure it does not occur, or that if is does, there is a clear and accessible forum for complaints and a process to deal with them. Allowing gender discrimination by co-workers or superiors to continue unchecked in the workplace can lead to costly and reputation-harming complaints.