A chest or cardiovascular examination focuses on the patient’s heart and involves multiple steps, one of which requires the examiner to place an entire hand on the patient’s chest to locate what is called the apex beat - the impact of the heart against the chest wall.
“I did not squeeze the breasts of any of the complainants as alleged,” Dr G told the tribunal last week, during testimony that at one point included him wiping away tears as he described the impact of the accusations on his own career.
He expressed a belief that the women had exaggerated the allegations after discussing the incidents among themselves. But he apologised for the “distress” he caused by putting them in a situation that he described as having the potential for misinterpretation.
The tribunal found today that he did squeeze some of the women’s breasts.
His conduct was described as inappropriate, unprofessional and amounting to “negligence and conduct likely to bring discredit to the profession”.
There was no attempt to touch the women with the back of his hand or to ask the students to position themselves in a way that would have been less invasive, the panel noted.
“There was no consent,” Baker said today, adding later: “The tribunal does not accept that a junior doctor ... would make inadvertent errors on six occasions.”
After the decision was announced, Dr Jonathan Coates, acting on behalf of the Medical Council’s professional conduct committee, suggested the tribunal should consider a suspension of three to six months, a fine of about $5000, an order of censure, payment of up to 50 per cent of the court costs - amounting to over $100,000 - and the imposition of conditions for up to three years that could include a requirement that he notifies any prospective future employers about the case.
Coates also asked that Dr G not receive permanent name suppression.
“We’re not talking about inadvertent errors,” he said. “It was a serious breach of professional boundaries.”
There was a power imbalance and the doctor “demonstrated a concerning lack of insight” into the gravity of his misconduct, Coates added.
“The harm it has caused [the women] has been very apparent,” he said.
Coates also said the latest complaints should be viewed in context of a 2012 incident - when Dr G was still a student - in which he was accused of having inappropriately touched a patient’s breast during a chest examination. The incident was at one point investigated by police, but neither police nor the hospital took action after an investigation.
Coates described Dr G has having been “decidedly nonchalant and evasive” about the incident. It should have put the doctor on “high alert” about “needing to be careful” with such exams, he said.
But defence lawyer Harry Waalkens, KC, said there was no “sexual component” to the current cases or the 2012 accusation, which he described as being about his client leaving the patient with the mistaken impression he was a doctor as he conducted the exam.
“The conduct itself was appropriate,” Waalkens said.
He described the current case as “at the lower end of the scale”. The finding of professional misconduct is already “a very real sting” and in addition to the “significant” suffering his client has already experienced, including the loss of his former job, he said, describing Dr G as having “genuinely endeavoured to help these students”.
He described the possibility of a suspension as career-ending and “completely out of kilter ... to the facts of this case”.
The pattern of six incidents, the lawyer said, serves as a “badge of his innocence”. He suggested the incidents would have been less brazen if his client had harboured nefarious intentions.
“From the outset [Dr G] had always acknowledged he acted unwisely,” Waalkens said, adding that his client has “learned a valuable lesson”.
“He had no idea at the time the complainants were uncomfortable ... He’s very sorry for his conduct.”
The most important outcome for his client, he said, is that he receives permanent name suppression.
Waalkens described the case as “very unique” because it does not involve any patient complaints but rather complaints from colleagues.
“There is no risk to the public,” he said, arguing for suppression to remain in place. “The profession needs to know and learn from this matter... [but] there’s no need for Dr [G] to be named and shamed.”
His client already intends to tell any prospective employers about the case, Waalkens added, asking that it not be an official condition put in place by the tribunal but a matter of trust.
Coates disagreed with many of the statements made by the doctor’s lawyer, including that the case was on the lower end of the scale, that his name should be kept secret and that there should be no condition to inform future employers.
“That’s just not the way ... the tribunal operates,” he said of the idea the doctor could be trusted to inform employers on his own.
“This is about transparency and openness. The tribunal is here to protect the public.”
