Medical science and practice within the Ontario Workers' Compensation Board, 1960-1995
Principal Investigator: Robert Storey
One of the major issues for injured workers from the late 1960s through the 1980s was the virtually hegemonic role played by doctors, who were employed full-time by the Workers' Compensation Board, in the claims adjudication process. Existing interviews with injured workers and their legal advocates describe a process whereby claims adjudicators made their decisions on the basis of the recommendations of medical doctors who were employed directly by the workers' compensation board. The Union of Injured Workers, formed in 1974, had the elimination of board Doctors as one of its four central demands.
This project will have two foci. First, it will seek to uncover and analyse the role of board doctors in the adjudication and appeal processes from the doctors' own perspectives. Second, it will trace and analyse the institutionalization of these views in workers' compensation board policies and regulations. The data for this study will be collected from primary documents including board policies and regulations, Ontario medical association documents, reports and journal articles, and in-depth interviews with injured workers, board doctors, board officials.
Research for this project will begin in 2006 and conclude in 2008.
History & social/political movements
Phase 1 Projects
The injured workers' movement in Ontario 1900-2005
Medical science and practice within the Ontario Workers' Compensation Board, 1960-1995
Phase 2 Projects