Celebrity neurosurgeon Charlie Teo has compared his shattered reputation to that of a falsely-accused paedophile in a podcast he recorded just days before a medical tribunal effectively ended his career in Australia.
On Thursday, a day after the Tribunal decision was handed down, Dr Teo was seen at Sydney airport with his fiancé Traci Griffith dressed in black and sporting a cap that reads: ‘Psycho (eyes) wide open.’
Dr Teo has a reputation for his willingness to perform risky surgeries on brain tumours deemed inoperable by other doctors, but has continually come under fire from the medical establishment for his controversial practices.
He is now expected to continue working in Spain where he is still permitted to operate.
Celebrity neurosurgeon Charlie Teo is spotted at Sydney airport with fiancé Traci Griffith
Dr Teo was seen at Sydney airport with his fiancé Traci Griffith dressed in black and sporting a cat that reads: Psycho (eyes) wide open
Two major complaints saw the Health Care Complaints Commission (HCCC) conduct a hearing in March over two surgeries performed in 2018 and 2019, which left the female patients, aged 41 and 61, with catastrophic brain injuries.
Dr Teo spent an emotional two months fighting the complaints on the stand – telling a medical panel why he cut too far into one patient’s brain, and why he removed more than nine centimetres from the other.
On Wednesday, the HCCC found him guilty of unsatisfactory professional conduct. The verdict means he is barred from operating unless a credentialing committee gives him approval.
His many supporters across Australia were furious at the the decision – taking to social media to slam the HCCC, and to express their outrage that patients will have to pay thousands more to travel to Spain, where he’s still permitted to operate.
During the podcast he compared the professionals who lodged complaints against him to false paedophile accusers, whose allegations destroy reputations.
‘The only reason that they’re accusing that person of paedophilia is because they want to destroy their reputation and their life, and they know full well that it’s untrue,’ he told host Bradley Dryburgh.
‘Once you label that person as a paedophile and it spreads across media channels and the internet, you can’t wipe that off your book – it’ll always be there.’
Dr Teo (pictured fiancé Traci Griffith) with has a reputation for his willingness to perform risky surgeries on brain tumours deemed inoperable by other doctors, but has continually come under fire from the medical establishment for his controversial practices.
Dr Teo (pictured fiancé Traci Griffith) spent an emotional two months fighting the complaints on the stand – telling a medical panel why he cut too far into one patient’s brain, and why he removed more than nine centimetres from the other
He then took aim at Sydney Morning Herald reporter Kate McClymont for publishing an article in 2021 that claimed he operated on the ‘wrong side’ of a patient’s brain.
‘It was completely slanderous and completely defamatory and it would have taken that journalists one phone call to realise that it was defamatory,’ he said.
Dr Teo explained he was taken off the lawsuit because ‘it was the fault of the radiology department for miss-labelling the x-ray’.
‘One phone call would have done that and but that journalist did not make that phone call.’
He also spoke openly about his medical peers and explained that, in his view, they had been trying to destroy him since he moved back to Australia from the USA in 1999.
During the podcast he compared the professionals who lodged complaints against him to false paedophile accusers, whose allegations destroy reputations
‘I knew my colleagues were after me, I was creating more enemies than friends. and one day they would strategise to bring me down,’ he said, adding that he was ‘proud’ to have survived 25 years without persecution.
‘The fact that I’ve survived when they got me when I’m 65, it’s not so bad to be ashamed that they eventually won.’
After the decision was handed down on Wednesday, his fans and former patients were outraged and pointed out that future patients with life-threatening tumours will have to save tens of thousands of dollars to travel to Spain.
Even though Dr Teo is effectively barred from operating in Australia, medical professionals have allowed him to continue performing risky surgeries in two hospitals in Spain.
So far, it is understood he has performed surgeries in Hospital Quiron de Torrevieja in Alicante, in south-east Spain, and Hospital Universitario Fundacion Jimenez Diaz in Madrid.
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