Families ask why B.C. surgeon still allowed to see patients after string of negligence claims

It was just a broken arm. Countless five-year-olds have had one, and in most cases, they recover just fine after a few uncomfortable weeks in a cast or splint.

But when Max McKee broke his arm falling from a kitchen cabinet in 2006, that didn't happen. His fracture was treated at B.C.'s Langley Memorial Hospital by orthopedic surgeon Dr. Tracy Eugene Hicks, who didn't set the bones properly before placing them in a cast, leaving McKee with a lifelong deformity, according to a court judgment.

Now 21, when McKee holds his right arm out to the side, his forearm hangs downward from the elbow at an awkward angle, causing him regular pain and years of self-consciousness as a teenager.

"The job I'm working right now, as an electrician, I'm constantly twisting my arm, screwing in lightbulbs — anything using a screwdriver, it's uncomfortable, and on a daily basis," he told CBC.

"There's nothing I can do about it. I can't fix it."

Earlier this month, the B.C. Court of Appeal ordered Hicks to pay more than $360,000 in damages for his negligent treatment of McKee's arm.

It was one of two decisions released by B.C. courts in the span of just one month concerning Hicks's medical negligence. In the second, Hicks was found to be negligent in his follow-up care for an older woman who had surgery for a broken hip, causing her months of pain.

Those cases follow a long string of malpractice allegations made in court throughout Hicks's career. Patients and their families have been raising concerns for decades, asking why Hicks is allowed to continue practising, including one grieving mother who questions whether his actions played a role in her daughter's death.

McKee's mom Stacey says she wishes she'd known about Hicks's history when she trusted him with her son.

"When you present to a hospital in an emergency situation, you do not get to pick and choose who your doctor is," she said.

"The College [of Physicians and Surgeons of B.C.] has a duty, and so does the hospital, to make sure that the person that you are seeing is qualified and capable."

Through his lawyers, Hicks declined an interview for this story, and he did not respond to a detailed list of questions about his history of negligence allegations.

Court records show that Hicks had already been named as a defendant in more than a dozen lawsuits by the time Max McKee arrived at the hospital in 2006.

That included a case where he'd performed unnecessary wrist surgery that left a patient with an "essentially … functionless" right hand and another in which he negligently severed a nerve "as big as a spaghetti noodle" during knee surgery.