The Medical Council’s Professional Conduct Committee says all four women had remarkably similar encounters with the doctor, their senior at the time, in 2016 and 2018.
They allege that during the course of informal one-on-one tutorials he would touch their left breasts in an inappropriate and unnecessary way, without their full and properly informed consent.
One woman told the Tribunal Dr G took her to an isolated meeting room on her first day at the hospital and asked her to close the door.
“There was no one around,” she said.
She said he suggested going through a cardiovascular examination, something students usually found difficult, she recalled him saying.
The cardiovascular examination is a complex one focusing on the patient’s heart but also includes the hands, face, and neck. It 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.
The woman said she felt awkward because this is usually done in a group setting and on male students, but said yes thinking he would take her pulse or examine her neck.
Dr G quickly moved to the apex beat, she said, launching to demonstrate it on her without saying anything, his palm touching her left breast.
“I felt like I’d been groped,” she said, explaining that it felt “like sexual touching, not clinical touching.”
“He made me feel scared, powerless and vulnerable,” even though she was a mature student at the time, the Tribunal heard.
She said the man had a higher standing while she was completely new that day in 2018 and needed to build relationships, especially with consultants like Dr G from whom she needed references.
After the incident, she messaged a colleague on Facebook to say she was “cornered and groped” by Dr G, and was told the same thing happened to the colleague two years before, in 2016.
The colleague, also one of the complainants, had warned her to “be careful” of Dr G right before the incident happened.
A third complainant told the Tribunal Dr G showed a strange persistence to perform the cardiac exam over other exams, demonstrating it on her and touching her breast on two separate occasions.
“I would have thought he would just do it once to demonstrate it, but I felt like he was really trying to feel for it properly on both occasions,” she said.
He offered to go through the exam with her a third and even a fourth time in the following weeks, which she declined.
She told her boyfriend after each incident, but did not tell Dr G the interactions made her “deeply uncomfortable”.
“I was fresh from university ... and you really don’t have any experience or authority to say anything.
“I gave him the benefit of the doubt [because] it was in the context of teaching me how to do a clinical exam,” she said.
Charges were first laid against Dr G earlier this year, and a hearing in October was adjourned after the first day.
Opening the case at the October hearing, lawyer for the professional conduct committee Belinda Johns said Dr G’s demo of the cardiac exam on the women themselves had little to no learning benefit for the medical students.
A cardiovascular examination is not itself sensitive, she said, but locating the apex beat on a female involves a sensitive area under the breast and requires special care, awareness and sensitivity.
The Tribunal chaired by Theo Baker continues this week.
