Disgraced Northland gynaecologist Graham Parry has other disciplinary cases pending, his lawyer said yesterday.
Dr Parry has appealed to the Auckland District Court to be reinstated after being struck off the medical register last year by the Medical Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal.
The tribunal found Dr Parry was grossly negligent in his care of cervical cancer victim Colleen Poutsma and removed his right to practise medicine. Mrs Poutsma died last month.
But the tribunal's own performance was criticised yesterday - by the judge presiding over Dr Parry's appeal.
Judge Graham Hubble said the $15,000 fine and $56,000 costs imposed on Dr Parry, who has a "stretched" financial position, were inappropriate, and were imposed without the tribunal's considering his financial position - a mandatory obligation of the tribunal.
During yesterday's hearing Judge Hubble asked if Dr Parry had ever had any other complaints laid against him.
Counsel Harry Waalkens said "a media beat-up" regarding Mrs Poutsma's case triggered more than 40 complaints to health authorities last year, but then revealed that of those, two were likely to result in disciplinary charges.
He also said a further five complaints were being handled by a New Zealand Medical Council competency review, and four others came under the jurisdiction of the Health and Disability Commission.
Up to 18 of the 42 further complaints had been assessed and dismissed. The remainder were still to be investigated but Mr Waalkens said the health authorities were having trouble finding all of the complainants.
But he said none of the pending cases amounted to disgraceful conduct, and none related to ultrasound work, which was Dr Parry's area of expertise and the type of medicine he wanted the appeal to let him continue practising.
Earlier, Christopher Hodson, QC, for Dr Parry, told Judge Hubble that the tribunal's disgraceful conduct finding was not appropriate. It put Dr Parry in the same category as a doctor who raped and sexually assaulted his patients.
Mr Hodson said Dr Parry had accepted that he had made a mistake but it had not been deliberate and at most amounted to professional misconduct, a lesser charge.
But Matthew McClelland, acting for the case's director of proceedings Tania Davis, argued that the doctor's performance did not need to have a deliberate or wilful basis for the tribunal to find disgraceful conduct.
The appeal hearing is expected to end tomorrow, although Judge Hubble may reserve his decision.
More charges for disgraced doctor, judge told
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