Sudheer Babu Duggirala indefinitely disqualified from applying for registration

A Queensland doctor with a history of groping female patients has been indefinitely disqualified from applying for registration.

Queensland doctor Sudheer Babu Duggirala.

A doctor with a history of inappropriately groping female patients on their breasts has had his registration cancelled and been indefinitely disqualified from applying for registration.

Sudheer Babu Duggirala, 62, also has been permanently barred from providing any health service involving direct contact with a female patient.

Last year, Sudheer Babu Duggirala was sentenced to 12 months’ jail, suspended for 18 months, after pleading guilty to sexually assaulting a young patient by sexually touching her breasts.

The woman had gone to Duggirala at a Rothwell medical practice in 2018 to get medical confirmation that she was pregnant, a tribunal heard.

After a blood test confirmed the patient was pregnant, Duggirala repeatedly asked the woman if she had breast pain before telling her to take off her top and bra.

He then grabbed the woman’s breasts and squeezed each a number of times, without a chaperone present, Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal heard.

When the patient told the doctor she had a sore hip, he pulled down her pants and underwear and prodded between her pelvic bone and hip.

After the consultation the patient emailed the medical practice questioning why the doctor had needed to feel her breasts, saying she had felt uncomfortable with what had happened.

Duggirala’s registration was suspended on June 5, 2018 and he was later charged with sexual assault.

A QCAT disciplinary hearing heard of Duggirala’s previous inappropriate touching of female patients.

While practising as a GP at Morayfield Shopping Centre Medical Clinic in 2006 he felt the breasts of a patient who had consulted him about tonsillitis.

He did not warn the patient before feeling her breasts, under her bra, commenting on her nipple ring.

When another patient went to the doctor for a for a contraceptive pill prescription in 2006, Duggirala felt the woman’s breasts five times and touched her genital area, without asking permission.

The patient objected to him trying to remove her underpants, the tribunal heard.

After an investigation of complaints by the Medical Board the doctor gave an undertaking that he would not conduct breast or genital examinations without a female chaperone present.

But his registration was suspended after he breached that condition in 2013.

After he was re-registered the doctor breached the condition again by examining a pregnant female patient’s breasts and genitalia without a chaperone present.

Duggirala was then suspended from practice for a total of 23 months and recommenced practice in 2015.

At the latest disciplinary hearing, Duggirala tried to rely on the fact that he had completed an education course in maintaining appropriate professional boundaries.

“My understanding of sexual boundaries and misconduct before completing this educational module was very limited,’’ he wrote.

He said the course made him aware that a doctor should avoid unnecessary physical examinations, that there should be no place for sex between a doctor and a patient and during an examination a doctor should never ask a patient to undress more than necessary.

QCAT Deputy President Judge Joy Allen said the matters Duggirala referred to as new knowledge would be readily apparent to even a junior practitioner of normal intelligence.

But Duggirala had also gone through two previous disciplinary processes resulting in sanctions for very similar behaviour he said.

Either the doctor was being disingenuous or was so lacking in empathy and insight that his character was incompatible with that expected of members of his profession, the judge said.

Judge Allen said Duggirala’s “very serious’’ professional misconduct showed a gross defect of character.

On October 7, Judge Allen ordered Duggirala’s registration be cancelled and he be disqualified from applying for registration as a health practitioner indefinitely.