Dr Charlie Teo has been found guilty of professional misconduct in a landmark ruling over an ‘inappropriate’ conversation with a patient’s daughter, an exorbitant fee he charged and other complaints about consent.
It was found he told a patient’s daughter that ‘You’re asking the wrong f****** question’ and ‘Would I do it all over again? F****** oath I would. You should be grateful.’
The controversial brain surgeon appeared before the Medical Professional Standards Committee in February to face complaints that he decided to operate on two patients where the risk of surgery outweighed any potential benefits of the surgery.
It was also alleged that he did not obtain informed consent from the patients before the surgery, charged an inappropriate fee of $35,000 to one patient and spoke inappropriately, with several swear words, to that patient’s daughter post-surgery.
In its decision announced on Wednesday the committee said it ‘found these elements of the complaint proven.
Dr Charlie Teo (pictured left with his partner Traci Griffiths) has been found guilty of professional misconduct in a landmark ruling
Details of Dr Charlie Teo’s foul-mouthed conversation (pictured) have been revealed
‘The committee found that Professor Teo was guilty of unsatisfactory professional conduct’ in 2018 and 2019 while working as a neurosurgeon at Prince of Wales Private Hospital in Sydney.
The committee ordered that Dr Teo ‘be reprimanded and imposed conditions on his registration to protect the public’.
These conditions include that Professor Teo must obtain a written statement from a Medical Council-approved neurosurgeon which supports him performing recurrent malignant intracranial tumour and brain stem tumour surgical procedures.
If the written statement does not support Professor Teo performing the procedure he cannot perform the surgery.
The committee found that ‘On or around 23 March 2019, (Dr Teo) used inappropriate language during a telephone conversation with Person E, Patient B’s daughter’.
The surgeon was found to have said ‘You’re asking the wrong f****** question’ and ‘Would I do it all over again? F****** oath I would. You should be grateful.
‘I’ve given the family extra f****** time.’
The committee found Person E to be ‘a credible witness whose evidence was not impeached in cross-examination.
The committee found that ‘On or around 23 March 2019, (Dr Teo) used inappropriate language’ (pictured)
The Medical Professional Standards Committee found that Dr Teo (pictured) spoke inappropriately to a patient’s daughter post-surgery
‘She candidly explained that she had used abusive and derogatory language directed to (Dr Teo) in her telephone conversation.’
It said it was ‘both likely and credible that (Dr Teo) responded in words attributed to him given Person E’s hostile introduction to their conversation’.
The committee found that Dr Teo’s reported words were ‘consistent with his explanation about offering surgery’.
It took into account evidence from another person, Dr Profyris, that Dr Teo ‘does swear from time to time’.
Five months ago the brain surgeon, who can also no longer work in the USA or Singapore, said he had been demonised in the Australian press and that it was costing lives.
Banned neurosurgeon Charlie Teo (pictured with girlfriend Traci Griffiths) said in February that the media and medics who ‘destroyed’ him have blood on their hands – and allowed children to die who he could have saved
‘I don’t know why a particular journalist or particular newspaper, a particular show or 14 particular neurosurgeons have taken on this task of destroying me,’ Dr Teo told Mark Bouris on his Straight Talk podcast.
‘But as long as they understand they have blood on their hands. I really want them to know that.
‘I want them to know that, you might not like me, you might want to destroy me, and you’ve succeeded.
‘But there’s not a day goes by that I don’t see a case that’s died, or was going to die that I could have saved. It’s terrible.’
Dr Teo said his ground-breaking brain surgery on ‘inoperable’ tumours was at first lauded by patients and the media, and gave him a ‘Bambi-like’ reputation.
But he argued his Messiah-like status was sabotaged by jealous rivals and the media.
‘I don’t know who’s behind it all but all the media has basically tried to make me look like I’m some sort of terrible person,’ he said.
‘Once they came out with all those headlines, all the colleagues who were jealous and fuming, wanting to destroy me, go, “Yes, Now we can go in for the kill!”
‘It was like a wolfpack seeing blood – a feeding frenzy. All these complaints started coming in.
‘Suddenly, Bambi was no longer Bambi. Bambi was a demon. And now we can go get him and we destroy him.’
He admitted his pioneering high risk surgery – usually where other doctors have said the associated dangers of an operation were too high – often had ‘terrible’ outcomes.
But more often than not, he said he had good outcomes – and that he had been treated unfairly.
‘I’ve done 11,000 brain tumours, can we please talk about some of the good results?
‘The judge at the time stopped me and said, “We’re not here to talk about the 11,000 cases, we’re here to talk about the two patients on the table.”
‘But that’s so unfair, because the outcomes of those patients was terrible.
‘They’re using those bad outcomes to say I should never have operated in the first place. It led to my professional demise.
‘There’s 11,000 other cases out there, of whom the majority have done well. I think that should be put into the equation as well before you start persecuting someone.’
***
Read more at DailyMail.co.uk