Australian Neurosurgeon Charlie Teo Found Guilty of Unsatisfactory Professional Conduct

Australian Neurosurgeon Charlie Teo Found Guilty of Unsatisfactory Professional Conduct
Surgical instruments are used during an organ transplant surgery at a hospital in Washington on June 28, 2016. The Canadian Press/AP-Molly Riley
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High-profile Australian neurosurgeon Charlie Teo has been found guilty of unsatisfactory professional conduct by the Health Care Complaints Commission and accused of having a “substantially experimental” attitude doing his surgery on two patients.

Dr. Teo was facing allegations from the families of two different women—referred to as Patient A and Patient B—who say they were not informed about the risks involved before agreeing to surgery. Neither woman regained consciousness after the surgeries in 2018 and 2019 at Sydney’s Prince of Wales Private Hospital. Both women had been diagnosed with terminal brain cancer.

The commission spent eight days investigating complaints relating to two women who were diagnosed with terminal brain tumours, with Dr. Teo being accused of misleading patients, failing to obtain informed consent from both patients and their families before surgery, and speaking inappropriately to a patient’s daughter after surgery.

In its 112-page decision released on Wednesday morning, the commission’s Medical Professional Standards Committee noted that Dr. Teo had decided to operate even when the risk of surgery outweighed any potential benefits.  

Nina Nguyen
Author
Nina Nguyen is a reporter based in Sydney. She covers Australian news with a focus on social, cultural, and identity issues. She is fluent in Vietnamese. Contact her at [email protected].
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