Dr. Lawton surgically repaired my daughter's torn ACL. A piece of wire was left in her knee and required two subsequent surgeries to remove it. She has been left with chronic pain. Dr. Lawton appeared to have no awareness of the damage he had done. My daughter is left to deal with the fallout. I contacted the ombudsman who dealt with my complaint - my concern was that it not happen again to another child. Unfortunately, the exact same wire breakage happened several months after my daughter's surgery. The more knowledge patient's have, the better they can talk to their surgeon in order to prevent mishaps such as this.

Submitted Dec. 9, 2019

I was a patient of Dr. Lawton's at CHEO from 2002 through 2008. I'd suffered a complicated knee injury (tore and bucket-handled meniscus). At the time my life revolved around a number of competitive sports and being able to maintain an active lifestyle was very important to me. Dr. Lawton did an exceptional job repairing my meniscus, and assisting in my treatment through years of physio. More importantly he was attentive, supportive, and understanding of what an injury like this meant at a such a young age. My family and I remain very grateful that I was assigned as his patient.

Submitted May 4, 2016

This winter my 2 year old son fractured his tibia near the knee while skiing. After taking him to our local hospital for X-rays and a plaster cast, we were sent to CHEO. At CHEO, they took X-rays without removing his cast which caused the images to be inconclusive. Thankfully we had brought the ones from our hospital. Dr. Lawton told us that what we saw on the X-ray was not a fracture because "legs don't break like that" (disagreeing with the ER Dr, the X-ray tech, another X-ray tech from Ottawa, and our family Dr.) and that he didn't know why our son wouldn't walk (which was really unusual for an energetic 2 year old). He had a walking cast put on from below the knee and said he could walk on it. Our son, who'd been fine dragging around a full length plaster cast suddenly wouldn't move his leg at all. That night, his twisted his leg and screamed in pain like when he'd broken it. Needless to say we went back to the local hospital to get his leg re-casted and never went back to CHEO.

Submitted July 16, 2014

My son had surgery with Dr. Lawton about 10 years ago to repair a meniscus problem. It was complicated due to the number of tears. Dr. Lawton was so supportive to my self as well as giving my son absolutely excellent care. My son has now played sports ( rugby) and taken two degrees, left home and married and to date, has never had another issue with his knee. It was a very positive experience, meeting and having Dr. Lawton to attend to my son. I will always be grateful. I recently referred a friend to him. Norma Young( MacLean)

Submitted Sept. 23, 2013

Great, friendly doctor. Nothing negative to say about him.

Submitted April 21, 2013