N.L. dentist caught in ‘teaching moment’ when he let officer remove teeth from inmate

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 02/02/2024 (968 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

ST. JOHN’S, N.L. – A dentist in Newfoundland was caught up in a “teaching moment” when he allowed a correctional officer to pull four teeth from a sedated inmate in his office, according to court documents.

An agreed statement of facts was read Friday in Newfoundland and Labrador Supreme Court in Gander, N.L., during a sentencing hearing for the dentist, Dr. Louis Bourget.

Bourget pleaded guilty to assault in September 2023.

The court heard that Bourget said in a statement that after he allowed correctional officer Ron McDonald to pull teeth from the mouth of Blair Harris, he realized he was wrong and had “crossed a line.”

McDonald and another correctional officer escorted Harris, who was an inmate at Bishop’s Falls Correctional Centre, to an appointment at Bourget’s office in Gander in October 2020. According to the agreed statement of facts, McDonald watched over the dentist’s shoulder as he worked on the patient, and was very interested in the procedure.

The court heard that Bourget began “actively teaching” McDonald, and offered to let him pull the teeth while the other correctional officer filmed. Bourget offered no concrete reason why he allowed a jail guard to perform dental work on a patient; all the dentist could say was that he was caught up in a teaching moment.

The statement of facts read in court Friday also included a description of the video found on the phone of the correctional officer who filmed the assault. It showed Bourget providing instruction to McDonald on how to use an extraction tool, and handing the tool to McDonald, who then used it to remove Harris’s teeth.

McDonald pleaded guilty to assault in September 2023; charges were dropped against the guard who filmed.

The court heard a statement from Bourget’s dental assistant, who was in the room while the work was performed on Harris. She said she went into shock when Bourget invited the correctional officer to remove teeth from the inmate, and that she had never seen the dentist do anything like that before. She said she had been a dental assistant for nearly two decades and never imagined she would be in such a position.

The agreed statement of facts also included comments from a registered nurse in Bourget’s office who took Harris’s blood pressure and prepared his intravenous line. She said normally correctional officers leave the room before dental work begins.

During the procedure, she left for a moment and heard Bourget say he would let one of the correctional officers pull a tooth. She thought he was joking. But when she returned, she saw the officer removing a tooth.

Bourget’s sentencing has been set over until March.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 2, 2024.

Note to readers: This is a corrected story. The previous version said the inmate’s name is Neil Harris.