VCAT: tribunal comes to a decision after Christopher Lee posted disgusting pictures and comments

A former Box Hill doctor who said “some women deserve to be raped” and posted pictures of dead women has learned the result of his fight to restore his medical licence.

A doctor who posted “horrific” images of deceased women in online forums has been disqualified from applying for registration again until December 2023.

VCAT found that Dr Christopher Kawn Chen Lee had engaged in professional misconduct, “failing to display a standard of behaviour that warrants the trust and respect of the community in that he posted and published content (including images and comments) on social media and internet forums, which is inconsistent with the professional values and qualities required and expected of a registered medical practitioner”.

The tribunal said Lee “failed to protect and breached patient confidentiality when he published and posted private health information and radiographs and images of patients on social media and internet forums”.

Lee’s medical licence was cancelled and he has been disqualified from applying for registration again until December 9 2023.

Lee, who at one time worked at Box Hill Hospital, posted graphic images described as “difficult to view”, and made misogynistic and discriminatory comments about female victims of violence, drug addicts and people with mental illness and disabilities.

After abandoning his online claims that he “will not conform to ridiculous moral standards and … expectations of what a doctor should or should not say”, in his VCAT hearing on May 5 Lee separated himself from the self-proclaimed “mongrel doctor” persona he expressed online, and asserted this was not a reflection of his real life personality or views.

The tribunal heard Dr Lee posted the images and comments online a total of 51 times, over the course of January 2016 through to December 2018 and again in January, February, March and April of 2019, the latter of these being posted while he was undergoing a hearing in a Tasmanian tribunal for earlier posts.

The Medical Board of Australia called on the tribunal to disqualify him from reapplying for six years from the date of his original suspension in June 2019.

Dr Lee has undergone psychological treatment and medical tests that led to an autism spectrum diagnosis.

The board accepted the diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder that Dr Lee submitted, but argued it was not directly linked to his expression of such “anti-social views and behaviour” towards vulnerable people and victims of violence.

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