Doctor suspended for touching medical students’ breasts, ordered to pay costs

A doctor who touched medical students inappropriately has been sanctioned. Photo / 123rf

A young doctor who touched medical students inappropriately has been suspended, fined, and ordered to hire a supervisor when he returns to practice.

The Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal delivered the doctor’s penalty this morning, wrapping up an eight-day hearing in which several women accused the doctor of touching their breasts unnecessarily while demonstrating a cardiac examination on them when they were medical students in 2016 and 2018 - allegations he strongly denied.

The tribunal found the doctor, known as Dr G due to an interim name suppression order, guilty of the charges against him.

Tribunal chair Theo Baker said the actions of the doctor amounted to professional misconduct likely to bring discredit to the medical profession.

“Against his excellent clinical and academic results, these findings reflect poorly on his judgment and interpersonal matters,” she said.

She said the tribunal was concerned about Dr G’s apparent lack of awareness about the link between the medical students’ allegations and an earlier incident in 2012, when a patient complained after he did the same chest examination on her.

He was a medical student on hospital placement at the time.

“We would have expected him to have articulated lessons [from 2012] with more empathy for the women and understanding of his role,” Baker said.

He also did not convey to the tribunal a full understanding of why his actions were inappropriate, when other doctors clearly knew they were not, she said later.

The doctor was stood down and eventually dismissed from his position in 2018 after the allegations, disrupting his career and planned path, and affecting his personal life.

Baker acknowledged the case was not among the gravest to come before the tribunal, and Dr G’s conduct concerned students, not patients.

His suspension serves to mark the tribunal’s disapproval and will give Dr G time to reflect on what has happened, she said.

She ordered a six-week suspension with conditions on his return to practice - including attending a 12-month educational programme on ethics, informed consent, and personal and professional boundaries, and hiring a supervisor who will report to the Medical Council quarterly.

He is not to perform any physical examinations or demonstrations on students until he completes the programme, and will have to inform any employer or health service provider about these orders for two years.

He was also fined $3000 and ordered to pay about $118,000 of tribunal and prosecution costs.

The tribunal extended Dr G’s interim name suppression until mid-January, after which it will lapse unless he appeals.