Melbourne medics who fell from grace
From a Box Hill doctor proclaiming “some women deserve to be raped” to a fake Brighton gynaecologist or a dodgy Armadale plastic surgeon, sometimes trusted medical ‘professionals’ become their patients’ worst nightmares.
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They’re trusted with our private information and take an oath to protect and heal the sick. But not all healthcare practitioners uphold their promise to ‘do no harm’. These are some of Melbourne’s disgraced medicos, from a Meadow Heights dentist to a St Kilda East psychologist.
THE ‘MONGREL’ DOCTOR
Christopher Kwan Chen Lee had his medical licence suspended following a series of vile and violent online rants against women.
The self-confessed “mongrel doctor” had been working at Box Hill Hospital in 2019 when his heinous forum posts were discovered.
The vicious and derogatory posts were made while Dr Lee was working at hospitals in Tasmania.
At a hearing before the Medical Board of Australia last year, the Melbourne University graduate admitted to posting comments such as “she needs to be abandoned in India and repeatedly raped” and “if my marriage fell apart, it would not end in divorce. It would end in murder” on internet forums.
He told the tribunal his comments had never coloured his care of patients, however in an online forum in 2016 Dr Lee was reported as having freely shared he was a medical practitioner with “a foul mouth”.
“My online personality is exactly the same as my offline one,” he wrote.
Other inflammatory comments posted by Lee included “some women deserve to be raped” and “with her suicide, nothing of value would be lost”.
Dr Lee’s suspension was initially meant to last just six weeks, but following public uproar the board extended it indefinitely.
According to the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency’s register of practitioners, Dr Lee’s medical licence is still suspended.
Eastern Health cut ties with the disgraced doctor following the board’s findings.
‘DR FAIL’
Roland von Marburg, dubbed ‘Dr Fail’, was last year finally banned from practising following 15 years of complaints from patients — including one who was left deaf after a botched surgery.
During a hearing last May, the extent of complaints against the shonky drug-addicted surgeon were revealed.
The tribunal found the ear, nose and throat specialist, who worked in the Albury-Wodonga area, was a danger to the public.
In one botched surgery he made a father deaf, while a young child had her ear unnecessarily operated on three times despite there being no chance it would improve her condition.
Other patients reported misdiagnoses and suffering life-changing symptoms following surgery, including balance issues and permanent face paralysis.
Von Marburg was stripped of his medical licence for eight years, with the tribunal said it was “gravely concerned” should he apply to re-register following the ban.
Other tribunal also heard the cowboy doctor had a painkiller addiction, for which he self-prescribed, had doctored patients records to cover his tracks and created false reports for tests he never completed and made false claims to Medicare for procedures not performed.
The tribunal found von Marburg engaged in 18 proven instances of “clinical incompetence” and called his medical malpractice, dishonesty and deception “egregious conduct”.
DR SKIN
Disgraced plastic surgeon Cynthia Weinstein was forced to turn in her scalpel a decade ago following complaints of botched facial procures, including reportedly leaving a patient with facial asymmetry, burns and extensive puckering of her skin.
In 2009, the medical board heard patients had been left with burns and stripes on their faces because staff at the clinic had not been taught how to properly use lasers.
Her swanky Armadale clinic has also been hit with orders banning the business from allowing Ms Weinstein to perform medical and surgical procedures, administer cosmetic injections and provide clinical treatment or advice to any person.
Ms Weinstein, the one-time face of Australia’s cosmetic surgery industry who calls herself Dr Skin, was last year again banned from treating patients despite a permanent ban on her medical licence already being in place.
It came after the High St clinic was raided by Health Department investigators amid allegations Ms Weinstein performed — and bungled — facial implants on a patient.
And in 2018, the Medical Board of Australia suspended the registration of Dr Galina Shvetsova after it found she had delegated surgical tasks to Ms Weinstein while working at the CDC Clinic.
THE FAKE FERTILITY SPECIALIST
A Brighton man who posed as a gynaecologist and fertility specialist by forging his medical qualification will spend at least six years behind bars.
Raffaele Di Paolo passed himself off as an IVF doctor between 2005 and 2015, originally working from his Bay St home and later an office in St Kilda Rd, Melbourne.
Di Paolo fleeced patients out of more than $385,000 over 10 years, charging big bucks to women hoping to conceive, claiming he practised a “more natural and successful” form of IVF.
In 2018 a jury found Di Paolo guilty of a raft of charges relating to his predatory behaviour, including inserting medical probes in patients’ vaginas and extracting semen from a man’s testicles without anaesthetic.
A court heard Di Paolo was a repeat offender, having been convicted in Italy of forging his medical qualifications during the 1990s, where he pretended to be an obstetrician and gynaecologist.
Last year Di Paolo made a bid to have his 15 jury convictions for procuring sexual penetration by fraud, indecent assault and assault overturned, claiming he had suffered from a mental illness at the time.
The sham medic also argued he should not have to be registered as a sex offender for life because his crimes were not motivated by sexual gratification.
But the judges ruled he posed a risk to “the sexual safety of the community seeking fertility treatment”.
His appeal was denied.
SEXUAL HEALING
A St Kilda East psychologist was banned after he gave his clients massages and had sex with her during after-hours counselling sessions.
Gregory Asher told the woman she had “the body of a porn star” and was “too much temptation” before having sex with her at his private clinic above his home.
Mr Asher started seeing the woman at a group practice in Carnegie before moving to private sessions so he could “spend more time (helping) her”.
Most appointments were scheduled after 5pm with some starting as late as 10pm.
During the sessions Mr Asher regularly gave the woman massages, asking her to undress.
The woman — a vulnerable single mother with financial woes and a survivor of child sex abuse — told VCAT Mr Asher was fixated on her sex life and probed her about her relationships with men.
The tribunal found Mr Asher guilty of engaging in sex and inappropriate behaviour with a client, failing to comply with professional boundaries and failing to maintain proper treatment records between August and December 2012.
Mr Asher denied any wrongdoing and has not been charged with any criminal offences.
His practising licence was suspended in July last year and the tribunal cancelled his registration with the Psychology Board of Australia in December.
He has been disqualified from applying to be re-registered for at least five years.
Tribunal deputy president Heather Lambrick and members Gwenneth Crawford and Marian Power said Mr Asher’s conduct had been “an abuse of the trust placed in him” by his client.
“Engaging in an intimate or sexual relationship with the patient is one of the most serious violations of professional boundaries which can occur,” they said.
“We are not confident at this stage that we could positively conclude that Mr Asher will not engage in like conduct in the future (and) we are not confident that he is a fit and proper person to practice as a psychologist.”
DODGY DENTIST
A backyard dentist who treated hundreds of patients while unregistered, smoked during surgeries and even asked a patient to hold the suction during her root canal was slapped with a $20,000 fine for his misdeeds.
The self-proclaimed “dentist for 45 years” treated patients out of his Meadow Heights home under the guise of a registered practitioner for 12 years.
The Department of Health and Human Services sunk their teeth into an investigation in 2015 after a 22-year-old disability support pensioner complained of such severe infection she couldn’t eat, drink or sleep after surgery.
During the horrific procedure the woman was asked to hold the suction herself during root canal surgery and gave evidence Mr Velipasaoglu “dropped several of his tools, picked them up and continued performing the procedures with the dropped instruments”.
The woman told the court the room contained used syringes in a conventional bin, bloodstained cotton wool, fragments of temporary crowns and sharps in a vase of water with a sponge.
The court also heard Mr Velipasaoglu smoked cigarettes, spoke on the phone, didn’t wear a face mask or gloves and did not wash his hands while performing surgeries.
The Department at the time confirmed it had received more than 150 calls from people who had been treated by the dodgy dentist at his home ‘clinic’.
Mr Velipasaoglu pleaded guilty to 17 charges including posing as a registered practitioner, using a protected title, carrying out dental acts and possessing schedule four drugs.
The Commonwealth offences did not carry a jail penalty.
He was instead fined $20,000, ordered to pay $13,137 in costs and do 250 hours of unpaid community work.
Mr Velipasaoglu trained as a dentist in Turkey but his qualifications were not recognised when he came to Australia with his wife and two children in 2000.