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- [00:02]
Dr. Melvin Iscov
You are listening. You're listening. You are listening.
- [00:04]
Krysha Collier
You're listening to a TVO Today with TVO Today. TVO Today podcast. A listener note. The following podcast contains coarse and sexual language and sensitive themes which may not be suitable for younger audiences. Listener discretion is advised. Previously on the Oath. Were there questions that he said over and over again to you?
- [00:30]
Dr. Melvin Iscov
What are you fantasizing about? What are you thinking about? What are you not telling me? What was the favorite question? Tell me about your dreams.
- [00:39]
Krysha Collier
I certainly looked to him as an authority figure.
- [00:43]
Dr. Melvin Iscov
I had to go to him.
- [00:44]
Krysha Collier
I had to hear, you're cured of.
- [00:46]
Dr. Melvin Iscov
Your neurosis from Iscov.
- [00:50]
Krysha Collier
Iscov was an adherent of a psychoanalyst.
- [00:55]
Dr. Melvin Iscov
From like the 50s named burglar.
- [00:58]
Krysha Collier
Do you remember anything about that?
- [01:00]
Dr. Melvin Iscov
I remember that he was a guy who followed a guy named Burglar's methods or beliefs when it came to the way he treated certain patients. The fact there's still people who believe that, it's not strange. It's crazy. It really is.
- [01:18]
Krysha Collier
Any kind of therapy which says that it's trying to change your sex, sexual orientation, as opposed to make you comfortable with your sexual orientation, is a form of conversion therapy. The province was noting that this was not seen as a curable disorder, but somehow the college didn't want to say that. I mean, fine. In August of 2023, my producer, Brennan Lefler and I decided it was time to pay a visit to Dr. Melvin Isco's office in Toronto. That's interesting. His name is still on.
- [02:05]
Dr. Melvin Iscov
So Isco's name is still on the directory. Directory. That is interesting.
- [02:11]
Krysha Collier
It's an ordinary looking building. Low rise, reddish brick, typical of 1970s architecture. It definitely has that medical building vibe. It's been years since Dr. Iscove lost his medical license, but when you search his name, Isco's office address still comes up. So his name plate is still on the door and there's a note that says, mailman, if door is locked, please leave packages at third floor reception. Thank you. And the door is locked.
- [02:43]
Dr. Melvin Iscov
So, I mean, no way of knowing if he ever actually comes here.
- [02:48]
Krysha Collier
The building was really quiet. We didn't see many people coming or going. Eventually, someone from a nearby office came into the hallway, so we asked if they had seen Isco. Do you know if anybody still practices here? I haven't seen him for a long time.
- [03:05]
Dr. Melvin Iscov
Okay, now they bend you.
- [03:08]
Krysha Collier
As you can imagine, we had a lot of questions, but we weren't sure Izkov was even in the country. We knew he had ties to New York City and that he had family overseas. I have to tell you, it was really important to us to hear Izkov's side of the story. But in order to do that, first we had to find him. For TVO Today, this is the Oath. I'm Krysha Collier. Episode 6 the Interview. For weeks, a large portion of our day went into finding Iscove. We managed to track down old phone numbers, email accounts, and addresses. We tried them all. No luck. So we decided to go back to his office in December 2024. So, basically, as it looks, it looks like nothing's changed. Yeah, I mean, at least in the.
- [04:16]
Dr. Melvin Iscov
Lobby, we'll see if that sign's still on his door.
- [04:20]
Krysha Collier
Our plan was to write up a letter with a formal interview request and slip it under the door. Maybe there was a chance he still came here. We weren't sure, but it was worth a shot. Okay, so we're at 204, so I'm gonna just slip it out under. It's delivered. Yeah, okay. We'll see if he comes back. The rest of the month came and went. Crickets. Then, in early 2025, a message popped into my inbox. It was Izkov. After some back and forth, he agreed to sit down with us. So in this final episode, we're going to do things a little differently. You're going to hear mainly from Iskov himself. That's because we're giving him a chance to respond to allegations made against him and comments people have made in this podcast. We did two different interviews, one in January, one in March. In total, we spent more than four hours speaking with Izkov. This episode is the combination of both. Why did you want to become a doctor?
- [05:27]
Dr. Melvin Iscov
I come from a family of doctors. My father was a family doctor. My mother had three brothers, all of whom became doctors.
- [05:36]
Krysha Collier
So it just is kind of like the family business.
- [05:38]
Dr. Melvin Iscov
Yeah, it was in the family. It was sort of expected.
- [05:43]
Krysha Collier
Our quick impression of Iskov. He's very intelligent, professional, and polite. He's measured in his answers at times. Others, not as much. In our first interview, he's wearing a suit and a tie. Iscov is tall and lean. If you saw him on the street, you'd never think he was almost 80 years old. Although there were times it was obvious his memory was starting to wane, especially during the second interview.
- [06:08]
Dr. Melvin Iscov
If this was four years ago, I would have said my memory is 100%. Today, I would say that it's somewhat less. And some details might not be clear in my recollection of them. So that is a potential obstacle to what we're doing here. But I think the people who have known me for decades would probably answer the question this way. His memory was always so good that even if he lost a few degrees, he could still answer your questions.
- [06:48]
Krysha Collier
We found this to be mostly true. There were times Iskov would forget what question was asked. He would repeat answers or struggle to recall details. But his knowledge of Dr. Edmund Burglar was unshakable. Why is Dr. Edmund Burglar's work so important?
- [07:05]
Dr. Melvin Iscov
Ah, how many weeks do we have? Burglar's work is important because in my personal opinion and experience, Burglar was second only to Freud in terms of understanding, perception, grasp of the material, ability to follow a thread and come to the correct conclusions, etc.
- [07:34]
Krysha Collier
What iScove thinks Dr. Berglar got right is his work on neurosis and psychic masochism. Obviously he had been using those theories in his practice for decades. But one of the areas we were hoping to have Iskov explain was Burglar's theory on homosexuality, since it comes up so often. In his case.
- [07:53]
Dr. Melvin Iscov
Going back to the developmental level, Burglar was able to trace the development of homosexuality to issues related to the child mother relationship and certain grievances, complaints. Every child has grievances about mother.
- [08:13]
Krysha Collier
The way Iscov breaks it down, every neurotic child has had trouble early on adjusting to reality. And for kids, reality is mostly shaped by their parents, especially their mother. He says if a child feels misunderstood or mistreated by their mom and never really works through those feelings, it can have a lasting impact.
- [08:35]
Dr. Melvin Iscov
One of the outcomes can be the turning away from mother to the self. Nobody understands me, nobody loves me. I have to love myself. So then you get the self centered person. But the other thing, it can lead to homosexuality. But then the irony of this is that any therapist who has worked with large numbers of homosexual patients can tell you what he hears about. Particularly if there's a homosexual patient who is in a homosexual relationship. Arguments, fights, breaking up, getting back together, running around on the side with others. So Berglif's books are filled with examples of this.
- [09:22]
Krysha Collier
I know a lot of heterosexual relationships that look the same.
- [09:26]
Dr. Melvin Iscov
Yeah, they do. But when homosexuals do it, they do it better. In other words, everything that we see in ordinary neurosis tends to be exaggerated in homosexuality. Why? Because there's a greater self absorption and the greater feeling of being mistreated, misunderstood, et cetera.
- [09:49]
Krysha Collier
We're going to put a pin in this for now, but we will get back to this later in more detail. Throughout our reporting, we've heard stories about Isco's bedside manner. Some people liked it and others didn't. And we've all been there, right? Sometimes you see a doctor and you click with them, sometimes you don't. And Carol d' Attosti definitely didn't click with Iscov. To remind you, Carol was a patient of Iscove's in Albany, New York, in the early 70s. We did find a couple of former patients, one of which. Her name is Carol d' Tosti. I don't know if you remember that name by your face. I think you might.
- [10:26]
Dr. Melvin Iscov
Unforgettable.
- [10:28]
Krysha Collier
Carol felt a little bruised about the therapy.
- [10:31]
Dr. Melvin Iscov
That's funny, because I took my boxing gloves off when I was talking to her.
- [10:35]
Krysha Collier
In case you didn't catch it. We think Iskove is being ironic here. He actually told me he sometimes uses irony with patients. He says it's a big part of burglarian analysis. I can see it, too. It pops up in our interview. He may have even used it with Carol.
- [10:51]
Dr. Melvin Iscov
One of the things we learn to say to people, to help them, to remind them that they are in the driver's seat, we would say something like this to people and say, oh, I'm so upset this. And so. And so sits there and hurt my feelings, etc. And this is after we've gone over all these things a hundred times or more. And I would say, well, you can suffer if you want to, but it's a gentle kind of irony. You can suffer if you want to. In other words, why suffer about this?
- [11:20]
Krysha Collier
Do you think people would have interpreted that directness or even that type of.
- [11:24]
Dr. Melvin Iscov
Irony, as if they'd worked with me for more than five, six months? They would have been very familiar with that.
- [11:31]
Krysha Collier
Okay. She found that very difficult. Mm. You're not surprised?
- [11:37]
Dr. Melvin Iscov
Uh, no. No, I'm. I'm never surprised when I hear anybody has said anything. I worked with her, and I think we achieved a fair bit.
- [11:48]
Krysha Collier
Izkov seemed genuinely unfazed by Carol's negative feelings about him. So I wondered if he thought some people were more amenable to his style of therapy than others. Izkov responded, some people were more amenable to looking in the mirror than others. If they don't like what the mirror shows them, they break the mirror. It's a point he directly and indirectly brings up over the course of our conversation, particularly when talking about his two accusers. The way the committee sort of characterized Your clinical practice or your interest, is it said something to the effect that you had a special interest in treating patients who were struggling with homosexuality. Is that a fair characterization of your clinical practice?
- [12:33]
Dr. Melvin Iscov
No. If there was evidence of this, whenever there was a signal of something, I would follow up. I think a lot of patients who were not ready yet to acknowledge the existence of this in themselves would turn around and say that I had a particular obsession with homosexuality and that I was trying to tell them that they're homosexual. And then so I would say to them, well, the four dreams that you had in the last month that involved homosexual activity, did I put those in your head? Now, patients are very quick to feel misunderstood by the analyst because they feel misunderstood by everybody.
- [13:20]
Krysha Collier
I was able to contact and speak in person with patient X. One of the things he had spoke to me about was that he had been insistent that he wasn't gay and that you insisted otherwise.
- [13:32]
Dr. Melvin Iscov
Well, you see, even there, that's not an accurate description because it was never my way to insist on something. I would always turn to the clinical material. What's the material? If the man has been telling me that he was on the subway and he's looking at the good looking guy across the car from him and having some fantasies. Well, heterosexual men don't do that. So I would say, well, you just told me that you're a homosexual. I am not. You know, this is the reaction. So. And then of course, you come along and you say, what was your experience with Dr. Iskove? And he's going to tell you that he tried to convince me that I was gay. But to turn around and blame the doctor for trying to work with the evidence in front of him in a clinical psychiatric practice, that doesn't make a lot of sense.
- [14:30]
Krysha Collier
Iskov took a similar position at his hearing in 2017. He suggested he was working with the material his patient provided. Iscov testified it wasn't about coming to terms with being gay. Rather, he said he wanted the complainant to just acknowledge it and to stop being so defensive about it. Some of the evidence Izkov discussed during his testimony was from his clinical records about patient X and patient Y. Those notes seemed to be a major bone of contention for Izcov both then and now, because, you know the old joke about doctors and their illegible handwriting. Well, Iscove says the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario, the cpso, couldn't read his notes, so he had to type them up. Isco says it took him well over a year of painstaking work to transcribe his shorthand. He says he wanted to use some of it in his defense to call attention to behavioral issues about the complainants, giving us the impression he thinks those traits may have made the men more likely to lie and undermine their credibility. But Isco says he wasn't really allowed to bring that up. If I understand correctly, you wrote up a chart from your clinical notes about both complainants.
- [15:42]
Dr. Melvin Iscov
Yes. Similarities.
- [15:43]
Krysha Collier
Were you able to present that at the hearing?
- [15:48]
Dr. Melvin Iscov
I don't recall exactly, but I believe I was not. I believe the way in which the hearing ran was that they would ask a question and I was to answer it. At one point, they did say when I made a point or when I was trying to raise something. They said, you're embarrassing the witness. So they were really stuffing a rag in my mouth.
- [16:15]
Krysha Collier
In what respect were they stuffing a rag in your mouth?
- [16:19]
Dr. Melvin Iscov
Well, for instance, I began with a lot of points about the similarities between the two men, going all the way back to their childhood. Every one of my files had a thorough past psychiatric history, and particularly the focus had to be on troublemaking behavior. They certainly had their share of emotional difficulties. So two patients who were so similar in their personalities and aspects that pointed in the direction of failures of adjustment in early life, ability to get along with people, ability to function, ability to go through childhood without constant turmoil and the difficulties in their getting along with other children, dealing with school, work, etc. Lying, taking advantage of other people. So my point with this chart that I made was to show that it can't be a coincidence. When we see so many psychological components, it adds up to something.
- [17:34]
Krysha Collier
We did check the transcript of Izcov's testimony. There are portions of it redacted, so we couldn't verify everything Izkov was able to say during his hearing and what he wasn't. What is clear, though, is that the CPSO's Discipline Committee did review at least some of his clinical records, because in the decision, there are references to them. Since we can't say one way or the other, it's possible Izco's claim that he wasn't allowed to discuss the full details of the complainant's psychiatric history hurt his defense. I wanted to ask you how you felt about the disciplinary process.
- [18:10]
Dr. Melvin Iscov
It's a very unpleasant experience, and it's the kind of experience which, once finished, the inclination is to say, well, thank God, that's done, and move on. But that's always been my way. If I fall, I pick myself up and keep going. So, with regard to the process because the specific area in which I was working is not particularly well known or understood that this didn't help me, because under other circumstances, if a doctor is accused, there will be many specialists who would be willing to step forward and say, well, he did a wonderful job. But in my area, we didn't have people who could understand or sympathize with what I was trying to help people with. I think that the college's view of a complaint is to really simplify it. If the patient is complaining, the doctor must have done something wrong and they don't understand that there are some people who can be angry at you if you open a door for them. I've seen this.
- [19:30]
Krysha Collier
Did you engage in sexual activity with the complainants?
- [19:34]
Dr. Melvin Iscov
No.
- [19:35]
Krysha Collier
Iskov has always maintained he is innocent of the allegations, but the committee didn't see it that way. He says that's because from the get go, the panel was biased. In fact, the way Izcov portrays the proceedings, it sounds like he feels like the deck was stacked against him, ranging from the committee not understanding his use of burglar's methods in his practice to complaints about his lawyer.
- [19:57]
Dr. Melvin Iscov
He was a good man, he was nice, he was good to work with. But I met with him at one point and I said, so have you accomplished this or have you looked at this? He said, well, I've been busy with other cases, but I will be getting to your case soon. This was two and a half weeks before the hearing, and I thought a high school student with a math exam coming up would spend more than two and a half weeks getting ready.
- [20:24]
Krysha Collier
So you feel like you did not have adequate counsel.
- [20:27]
Dr. Melvin Iscov
I felt that he was not up to the task.
- [20:31]
Krysha Collier
Brennan reached out to Izcov's lawyer. In a statement, he said, in the eight years since I represented Dr. Izkov, to the best of my knowledge, he never raised an issue about the quality of our representation. A strong and thoroughly prepared defense was presented on behalf of Dr. Iscove. I therefore find his comments very strange. I contacted the CPSO about ISCOV's criticisms as well. In an email, the media rep said a disciplinary hearing was conducted following established rules and regulations. There was a finding of professional misconduct and his license to practice medicine was revoked. They added, the college doesn't comment on specific complaints and investigations and mentioned that confidentiality obligations in Ontario law restrict it from sharing any information beyond what has already been made public. Isco's hearing took place over eight days. Both patient X and patient Y testified about how the alleged Sexual abuse unfolded. In the decision, the committee noted that there were similarities between the two men's stories, to name a few. Both began seeing Izkov when they were relatively young, in their late teens and early twenties. They described the alleged sexual abuse occurring after many years of therapy with him. And they recalled a virtually identical progression of sexual activities from sexual touching to mutual masturbation and oral sex. There were enough similarities between the two stories that it caused the committee to consider the potential that the two complainants colluded. And the committee noted Iscov suggested it was possible the two men knew each other. He talked about that with us, too. Iscov thinks they might have met in his waiting room.
- [22:17]
Dr. Melvin Iscov
There were certain patients who disobeyed my requests about privacy. The sign on my waiting room door said, please enter and close the door behind you. Quite often I would find the door open when I came out to show them in, and I would point out to people, I said, you've seen the sign about closing the door? Yes. Why did you leave it open? Oh, oh, I don't know. I didn't realize I would get some excuse, particularly with homosexual patients.
- [22:55]
Krysha Collier
Do you think they colluded against you?
- [22:58]
Dr. Melvin Iscov
I can't prove it, but given that they both had this tendency to leave the door open, it would not be that unusual that they had bumped into each other at some point and they were both homosexual and they were both on the lookout, and then if they did get into a conversation, it's all if. But if they did get into a conversation and they both each discovered that I had said this that he didn't like, and the other one says, well, he told me that and I didn't like it.
- [23:35]
Krysha Collier
And.
- [23:36]
Dr. Melvin Iscov
And then suddenly you have two people who are working together say, well, why don't we just take this guy out of business?
- [23:43]
Krysha Collier
Just so that I'm clear. The motivation would be because they didn't like what you were saying over the many years you were seeing them in therapy.
- [23:50]
Dr. Melvin Iscov
Yeah.
- [23:52]
Krysha Collier
It's important to tell you at no point was the committee presented with any evidence of collusion. How do we know that? Well, it says so in the decision. It did mention, though, there were more than 20 times when both patient X and patient Y had back to back appointments with Izcov and maybe could have met. But the committee said the last time that happened was in 2002, which was roughly 10 years or more before each complaint to the college. And both complainants denied knowing each other. In the end, the committee found them credible and believed the alleged Sexual abuse occurred. There was at least one other allegation against Izkov. Around the mid-2010s. We told you about it. In the last episode, the CPSO posted a notice of hearing about it. The allegation had something to do with an incident in a public washroom in 2014. In July 2019, the CPSO withdrew the notice. Other than the college, which says legally it can't say much, Izkov is the only person we can find who knows, knows what took place. I wanted to ask, because it was up and then down and they didn't give a conclusion what happened.
- [25:02]
Dr. Melvin Iscov
I don't recall. There certainly was never a hearing about an incident like you described. I do recall that at one point I had had some urinary difficulties where I would think I was finished, and then I would leave and then realize that I had to go again, so I'd go back. Maybe it was in connection with that.
- [25:28]
Krysha Collier
Maybe it was because Izkov only had vague memories about the incident. And by the way he describes it, it could have been a simple misunderstanding. Here's the interesting thing, though. In trying to run down what happened, we went down a lot of different alleys. Most of them were dead ends. But we did get a tip about a potential historical complaint that we haven't mentioned yet, which we couldn't ignore. So we went digging through old archive files, made many Freedom of Information requests. We did everything we could think of to verify this information. At one point we thought we were just chasing a ghost, until finally we discovered an old CPSO publication from the 1990s at a university library with some of the details we had been told. Have you ever had any hearings prior to 2017?
- [26:18]
Dr. Melvin Iscov
I don't think so.
- [26:19]
Krysha Collier
Not one in.
- [26:20]
Dr. Melvin Iscov
No. Wait a second. Yes, there was something.
- [26:26]
Krysha Collier
In the 90s, in 1992.
- [26:29]
Dr. Melvin Iscov
Yeah.
- [26:30]
Krysha Collier
With similar allegations.
- [26:32]
Dr. Melvin Iscov
Yes, I remember that there was a complaint, there was a hearing, and I remember the outcome was that the charges, the complaint was dismissed. And I remember being very relieved, very pleased.
- [26:49]
Krysha Collier
So if you look at the details, there's certain similarities. I was just wondering how you could explain, especially when we were talking about collusion, the 1992 for sexual impropriety. And then, you know, do the math. Let's say in and around 20 years, it's a similar allegation, similar types of.
- [27:11]
Dr. Melvin Iscov
Patients, and this has always been the danger in our kind of practice. Burglar had difficulty with homosexual patients. I don't know that he ever dealt with any complaints from them, but he certainly worked harder with them because they knew how to make the therapist work for his money. Argumentative, challenging. Didn't get that with non homosexual patients.
- [27:48]
Krysha Collier
Back at the hearing in 2017, Iscove testified he saw, quote, many, many homosexuals over the years. He said probably more of them left after one or two appointments than stayed. I know we've talked about this a lot already, but Izkov was asked multiple times about how he would use Burglar's theories, even by his own lawyer. Do Burglar's methods involve helping people so called cure homosexuality? Perhaps you could explain this to the committee. That question has been rattling around our brains from the beginning. At least in the decision it said that both complaints thought you were trying to cure them of their homosexuality.
- [28:30]
Dr. Melvin Iscov
Well, I can tell you that in the course of clinical practice, it's not first and foremost I have to get this person from over here to over there. The procedure is to look for connections and trace the feelings. And so what's the history of this and how did your parents feel about these things? And then we looked again to see what is the person using from their early life experience and teachings to now create self torment. Everything comes back to self torture.
- [29:10]
Krysha Collier
But would that be something you would have said, like, if someone came in and was having issues around their sexuality, they go, can you help me? Would you use the word cure when.
- [29:21]
Dr. Melvin Iscov
Something comes up for the first time? My answer would have been, this is definitely something that we can investigate. There's a great deal of material, and then we'll see what you accomplish with that. What does cure mean? In any medical condition, there is a symptom, there is a problem, there is a diagnosis, and there is a patient who is suffering. So cure means reduction or, and ideally elimination of the suffering, the suffering which is related to the problem.
- [29:58]
Krysha Collier
In today's medical standards, if someone came to you with fears that they're gay, the standard practice would be to learn to accept who you are.
- [30:11]
Dr. Melvin Iscov
Exactly. So, and what if they come to you because they have impulses to steal every time they're in a department store? So is the standard practice that, well, you just have to know that you are a thief and live with it. But that's accept yourself.
- [30:30]
Krysha Collier
It's different though, once you agree it's different. Being gay and stealing.
- [30:34]
Dr. Melvin Iscov
No, what they have in common is there's something that it's bothering him. This isn't where I thought I was going.
- [30:42]
Krysha Collier
Izkov acknowledges that many of his colleagues believe homosexuality is part of normal behavior. Just a reminder, leading psychiatric organizations no longer consider homosexuality as A disorder. So I asked Iskov, why not just set Burglar's work aside when seeing patients where sexual orientation is part of the picture? He didn't really answer that question directly. Instead, Iscove implied the reason the American psychiatric association, the APA, removed homosexuality as a diagnosis from the DSM in 1973 was because of public pressure, not science. He goes on to tell me about gay rights protests at APA meetings in the early 1970s. Izkov is right. There were protests and they did stir things up. But then later, after the decision to cut the diagnosis was made, some psychiatrists weren't too happy about it, so they petitioned the APA to hold a referendum. When it was all said and done, 58% voted to uphold the decision to remove it. Did Burglar have a bias towards people who were gay?
- [31:49]
Dr. Melvin Iscov
Absolutely not. He said, it takes a strange kind of bias against a group of people to work out and to study them, to work with them by the dozens and hundreds and work out method of treatment to help them change. Where's the bias?
- [32:11]
Krysha Collier
One of the things that when we started looking into this case, Toronto Star comes up, the National Post comes up. They make mention to conversion therapy in relation to your clinical practices.
- [32:24]
Dr. Melvin Iscov
But that's based on the assumption conversion means changing something from something it is over here to something it is over there, which is not the case.
- [32:35]
Krysha Collier
And that's not what you're doing.
- [32:37]
Dr. Melvin Iscov
That's not what I'm doing at all.
- [32:40]
Krysha Collier
What is the difference between Burglar's analysis and method and conversion therapy?
- [32:47]
Dr. Melvin Iscov
Conversion therapy is not a term that I've ever used or thought in terms of. I suspect that the term conversion therapy came about because of the underlying idea that a person is either heterosexual or homosexual. They're two different creatures. The idea that the potential to be heterosexual is present in everybody, including in homosexuals, and that they have gone in a different direction for a reason or reasons, that's not part of the current thinking. You either you're this or this. So that's where psychoanalysis and Freud and Burglar come into the picture. That in the same way that somebody with other neurotic symptoms or traits, such as a fear or a worry, this is not something inborn or genetically determined.
- [33:53]
Krysha Collier
Is there any possibility in which Burglar's theory on homosexuality is wrong?
- [34:03]
Dr. Melvin Iscov
Yes, there is a possibility that his theory is wrong. And there's also a possibility that this is not a desk.
- [34:13]
Krysha Collier
That's the thing about Iscov. He is well aware the psychiatric standards of care have changed and that they changed a long time ago. He just doesn't agree. As I left the second interview with Iscov, it's pretty obvious where he stands. But more than a year into researching this story, I don't think we can say the same thing about the medical regulator. When we ask questions, we often got written statements that didn't get into specifics or the questions weren't addressed at all. For instance, we asked if the college had ever recommended allegations to the discipline tribunal in relation to so called conversion therapy. Instead of answering that question directly, a media rep said things like the CPSO is committed to ensuring that patients receive evidence based care. In fairness, the regulator has provided us with some details. Part of it was about how complaint, investigations work, professional obligations and continuous improvement. But throughout this entire process it repeatedly told us that legislation prevents it from providing key information that we were looking for. And we get it. It's important to keep doctors and patients information confidential. But how far should confidentiality go? Even some experts we talk to think there is room in the law for the college to be more transparent. So I guess what we really found out is this story is about more than just Iscov's case because you can have all the rules and laws in place, but if it's not clear how they're being carried out, I'm not sure the public can be confident the system is really working. The Oath is hosted, written and co produced by me, Krysha Collier. Brennan Lefler is a co producer and writer. Sound design and editing by Damian Kearns. Editing and technical support by Matthew o' Meara. Theme music by Alison Layton Graham Special thanks to the Berry and Lori Greene Family Charitable Trust who made this podcast possible for tvo. Katie o' Connor is the Managing Editor of Podcasts and Digital Video. Laurie Few is the Executive Producer of Digital. John Ferry is Vice President, Programming and Content. Thank you for listening.