An emergency room doctor from St. Albert has been suspended for at least a month because she illegally tapped into restricted medical files . The College of Physicians & Surgeons of Alberta announced this week that it had found Deanne Dee Gayle Watrich , an emergency room doctor and a St. Albert resident , to be guilty of unprofessional conduct . Watrich had previously admitted to unprofessional conduct at a hearing tribunal held by the college last November . Specifically , the tribunal wrote in its ruling , Watrich accessed the electronic health records of three people 21 times between Aug. 5 , 2009 , and May 2 , 2010 , without having a patient / physician relationship with those people . Its okay for doctors to access patient records if they are actually treating those patients , explained college spokesperson Kelly Eby , but not otherwise . She accessed the electronic health records of three people who she was not treating , she said . Its an invasion of privacy . It also violates the provincial Health Professions Act and Health Information Act , and goes against the Canadian Medical Associations Code of Ethics and the colleges standards of practice . Watrichs case started when the provincial privacy commission began investigating a complaint from a man who had requested an Alberta Netcare log . The log showed that nine doctors , none of whom were treating him , had accessed his electronic health records . He alleged that Watrich might be the one responsible . The man listed his partner and mother as co - complainants , both of whom had their files accessed by three other doctors . Watrich admitted to the privacy commissioner and to the tribunal that she was responsible for accessing these restricted records using the logins of 12 other doctors . On 21 occasions , the tribunal heard , Watrich used computers in the emergency department of the Edmonton Misericordia Hospital to access these records after the previous user had not logged out , and did so knowing that her personal ID would not show up in the computers logs as a result . Watrich was in a personal relationship with one of the complainants when she accessed some of the records , the tribunal found , and in a relationship with the former spouse of said complainant when she accessed others . I do nt know why I logged in to their Netcare and why I did it so many times , Watrich said at the hearing last November . It did nt actually give me any power . It did n't give me anything . In retrospect , she believed accessing these records might have been a way for her to cope with the difficult divorce and child - custody proceedings her partner was going through at the time . Watrich told the tribunal that she was humiliated and embarrassed by her actions and deeply disappointed in ( herself ) . She had apologized to the complainants , and paid a significant monetary settlement to them in a related lawsuit . Covenant Health ( which runs the Misericordia ) had also put a reprimand on her record . Even though Watrich did nt disclose any of the information she accessed , the tribunal ruled , her actions were done repeatedly and with intent to deceive , and impugned the reputation of her fellow physicians . ;