Queensland doctor’s bid to get job back fails after ‘rambling’ appeal hearing

A doctor permanently barred from the profession has lost a last ditch bid to salvage his career following a “rambling”, “confusing” and sometimes “incomprehensible” appeal hearing.

Doctor John Yuk Ching Ting failed to get his job back in an appeal hearing. Picture: Facebook / Woody Point Medical Centre

A Queensland doctor disqualified from the profession has lost a last ditch bid to salvage his career following a “rambling”, “confusing” and sometimes “incomprehensible” appeal hearing.

Doctor John Yuk Ching Ting sought to overturn a Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal decision that found he had engaged in professional misconduct and resulted in the imposition of an indefinite disqualification from reapplying for medical registration.

The QCAT judgment handed down in December followed action from the Health Ombudsman after an investigation into the death of one of Dr Ting’s patient hours after an appointment in November 2017 in which he prescribed the man suboxone.

According to the Court of Appeal judgment handed down on Tuesday, Dr Ting, who previously worked at a Redcliffe medical practice, gave the prescription to the “highly vulnerable” patient without taking a proper history or establishing a treatment plan.

The tribunal found Dr Ting’s clinical management of the patient “was not consistent with accepted medical practice and fell below the standard to be expected of a general practitioner”.

John Yuk Ching Ting. Picture: Facebook

A coroner concluded the man died from the combined effects of a number of prescribed medications and the Ombudsman did not contend Dr Ting’s conduct was the direct cause of the man’s death.

In another incident in March 2018, Dr Ting performed an iron injection on a patient that “was not in accordance with accepted medical practice and was below the standard to be expected of a general practitioner”.

The court heard the patient was left experiencing pain, discomfort, and skin discolouration for about five months following the procedure and the tribunal found the injection was performed in an “unsafe and irregular manner” that caused the patient actual harm.

Dr Ting was also found to have breached registration requirements in 2019 by not recording contact with three patients on one day and by consulting more than four patients per hour on four dates.

In February 2019 he also prescribed medications without holding an endorsement to do so.

Dr Ting represented himself at an appeal hearing in July this year, and claimed the judicial member who presided in his case was “biased and not impartial” and was in “frequent subtle collaboration” with the counsel for the Ombudsman.

“His oral submissions were unorganised,” the appeal judges wrote.

“At times they were rambling to the point of being confusing.

“Some parts were incomprehensible. Some of the respondent’s allegations were grave.”

Dr Ting also claimed the judicial member used “intimidating and inappropriate comments/tactics directed against” him but no specific comment or tactic was identified in the appeal.

The Court of Appeal rejected those submissions, finding the judicial member’s conduct had been appropriate and dismissed Dr Ting’s application for leave to appeal.