By MARTIN JOHNSTON health reporter
A "dangerous" and "mercenary" liposuction doctor has been suspended after he was found guilty of professional misconduct for the fourth time.
Health groups want Dr Warren Wing Nin Chan to give up medicine, and have urged a law change to allow repeat offenders like him to be
struck off the medical register.
In a damning decision published yesterday, the Medical Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal suspended Dr Chan's registration for nine months and fined him $12,500.
It also recommended that his medical competence be reviewed, censured him and ordered that he pay costs of more than $19,000 - half the cost of the case.
The case involved a woman, whose name was suppressed, who paid $2500 for a "liposculpture" fat removal operation by Dr Chan.
The tribunal was told she woke up twice during the July 1996 operation and Dr Chan, without an anaesthetist present, injected her with an excessively large dose of sedatives.
She suffered serious pain for several weeks afterwards and, contrary to what she was told, the fat on the backs of her legs was not removed.
The tribunal accepted that the evidence portrayed a "disturbing level of indifference ... by a doctor driven by mercenary considerations and devoid of any genuine care or concern" for his patient's best interest.
Dr Chan said from Sydney yesterday he was appealing against the tribunal's "unjustified" verdict, and was not operating here "in the meantime."
The tribunal cannot strike doctors off for conduct unbecoming or professional misconduct.
But lawyer Helen Cull, QC, in her review of the handling of medical failures, recommended to the Government in March that the law should be changed to allow it to strike off "serial" offenders.
Women's Health Action executive director Sandra Coney said yesterday Dr Chan deserved to be struck off as he had not changed his practice despite recommendations in the earlier disciplinary rulings.
Dr Julian Lofts, chairman of the Foundation for Cosmetic Plastic Surgery, said if Dr Chan had "any conscience whatever, he should get out of medicine."
