24 Victorian doctors, nurses and medical practitioners named on health watchdog’s list in 2024
Dozens of Victorian healthcare workers had their licences cancelled in 2024 by the national medical board. Read what they did.
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More than 20 Victorian doctors, nurses and health workers had their registrations cancelled by medical authorities last year.
Among them are doctors who sexually assaulted patients and nurses who stole prescription pads to fuel their addictions.
Others came to the regulator’s attention for far less serious matters.
We have excluded the names of those health practitioners who were tried in court in a different state.
Most of the practitioners were from the Melbourne metropolitan region, including Broadmeadows, Mornington, Carrum downs, Armadale, Hawthorn East, Pascoe Vale, Ripponlea and St Albans.
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The Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA) ensures only health practitioners with the skills and qualifications provide competent and ethical care are registered to practise.
Only a tribunal can cancel a practitioner’s registration, disqualify a person from applying for registration for a time or prohibit a person from using a specified title or providing a selected health service.
Here is the list of Victorian doctors whose registrations have been cancelled, disqualified, or prohibited in 2025.
Stuart Gordon Anderson — Medical Practitioner at Broadmeadows
A medical practitioner with a pediatric practice in Broadmeadows had his registration cancelled after he was convicted of four charges of sexual assault.
Stuart Gordon Anderson pleaded guilty to intentionally touching four young football players in a sexual manner without their consent while conducting medical examinations and massages.
He had been a registered medical practitioner since 1979 and a volunteer at a local football club since the late 1990s.
At the time of the offending, he had an established pediatric practice.
The court sentenced Anderson to a 24-month community correction order, with conditions requiring him to perform 200 hours of community work and undergo sexual offender treatment.
Anderson registration was cancelled and he was disqualified from registering as a medical practitioner until November 2034.
Jordanna Lee Bronstring — Enrolled Nurse at Mooroolbark
A Mooroolbark aged care nurse was disqualified after she was caught stealing prescription pad to fuel her opioid addiction.
Jordanna Lee Bronstring — a former nurse at Mooroolbark Aged Psychiatry Residential Care Facility — wrote herself fake scripts using a stolen prescription pads from a doctor at her workplace.
She then used it to obtain Endone tablets from Chemist Warehouse Westfield Knox on multiple occasions.
Bronstring was disqualified from applying for registration as a health practitioner until October 22, 2025.
Maria Teresa Cassar — Psychologist at Mornington
A Mornington Psychologist lost privileges to practice after she was caught supplying illicit drugs and prescription medication to a patient.
Maria Teresa Cassar obtained crystal methamphetamine, amphetamine and Xanax for a patient between February 2018 and February 2019.
Cassar also attempted to solicit two current or former patients to fraudulently undertake board mandated drug testing on her behalf.
The psychologist also failed maintain professional boundaries with eight separate patients, by socialising with them and having multiple relationships with them; borrowing money from them; providing psychological services to them in her loungeroom and bedroom; and asking them to providing her references for the board’s investigation into her conduct.
Cassar was disqualified from applying for registration for a period of two years; that is, until May 2026.
Andrew Castles — Medical Radiation Practitioner (Nuclear Medicine Technologist) in Lake Wandouree
A medical radiation practitioner who committed “abhorrent sexual offences” against a 14-year-old-child had his registration disqualified.
Andrew Castles made contact with the child who was biologically female but identified as male on Grindr.
Castles then met the child — who he knew was 14-years-old — for engaging in sexual activity.
After picking up the victim from his place of residence, Castles took the child to his home and gave him GHB before having penetrative intercourse with him.
Castles made full and frank admissions to police when he was arrested.
His registration was cancelled and he is disqualified from applying again until October 2029.
Henry William Caudle — Medical Practitioner at Bentleigh East
An Epworth psychiatrist was disqualified from providing care after he was found engaging in a sexual relationship with a patient and inappropriately prescribing medications to another.
Henry William Caudle inappropriately provided Valium and fentanyl to a patient in 2017, while also starting a personal relationship with another patient.
The tribunal heard he breached professional boundaries by forming a close personal relationship with a troubled female patient, who he kissed during sessions and confessed his love to.
The woman came into his care after being admitted as an inpatient with depression, suicide ideation and an eating disorder exacerbated by a sexual assault.
The tribunal heard Caudle would pay her out-of-pocket medical expenses so she could keep seeing him twice a week, let her stay the night in his office and sent her texts saying he couldn’t imagine life without her and she was the “type of woman he would want to marry”.
Caudle abruptly ended their therapeutic relationship without warning in July 2017 because he feared it had breached professional boundaries.
However he failed to refer the unwell woman to another medical practitioner despite her fragile state and worsening drug addiction.
Caudle was disqualified from applying for registration as a health practitioner until May 2025.
Ashlea Susan Constance — Chiropractor at Eltham
An Eltham chiropractor failed to maintain her professional indemnity insurance (PII).
Ashlea Susan Constance was caught by the national medical board for falsely claiming she had a valid PII between the January 2013 and June 2022.
During that time she practised at Diamond Creek Chiropractic between April 2013 and December 2017 and Chiropractic and Wellness Clinic in Eltham between November 2020 and June 2022.
Constance was interviewed by Ahpra in April 2022. When asked about why she had failed to maintain her PII, she said she thought the PII was auto-renewing
The Tribunal said the public expected professionals to hold adequate PII, so that in the event a practitioner’s act or omission caused substantial actionable damage, there was no possibility of the affected person being left unable to recover for their loss.
Constance was disqualified from applying for registration as a health practitioner for a period of three months from May 2024.
Meredith Carol Coulson — Nurse in Hurstbridge
A Hurstbridge nurse with 30 years under her belt was disqualified after forging prescribing scripts
Former Austin Health nurse Meredith Carol Coulson stole prescription pages, forged prescriptions and obtained medications for herself and family members in 2019.
When irregularities in a script were noticed by a diligent pharmacist, the conduct came to light and criminal charges followed.
It was revealed Coulson developed mild addiction to sedatives (to aid sleep) after her father died of terminal illness and her mum suffering a serious health episode.
Coulson used stolen pads to write scripts for opioids, zopiclone, Pregabalin, pain medications and more.
Coulson was disqualified from applying for registration as a nurse until December 27, 2024.
Blair Alexander Easdon — Registered Nurse at Carrum Downs
A private hospital nurse who groped sedated patients because he had stopped using porn as his coping mechanism has asked the medical board to let him return to the profession.
In 2019, Blair Easdon while working as an anaesthetic theatre nurse at an unnamed private hospital touched a female patient on the breast while she was unconscious after her surgical procedure.
Easdon — who had been a nurse since December 2013 — also brushed his hand past and groped the breast of another unconscious female patient, aged 18, and intentionally checked the sanitary pad of another sedated female patient in her mid-20s for “sexual gratification”.
After sexually assaulting the patients, Easdon told his then-fiancee what had happened.
She encouraged him to talk to their pastor who urged Easdon to tell his employer and police.
Hospital management also offered Easdon the chance to self-report to AHPRA before they would make a mandatory report.
Police were unable to identify two of the three nurse’s victims because they were unaware of the assaults due to being sedated at the time and Easdon could not recall exact date of the attacks.
The third victim was identified but not notified of her assault. It’s not known why she was not told.
Easdon was charged and pleaded guilty to two counts of sexual assault in a Victorian Magistrates’ Court in 2021 and was given an 18-month corrections order without conviction and ordered to complete a behaviour program.
Easdon was reprimanded and disqualified from holding a nursing licence for 12 months starting April 2024.
Michael Peter Ellis — Medical practitioner in Bayswater
A Bayswater doctor who published homophobic and anti-vaccine posts on social media lost his registration in 2024.
In 2020, APHRA was notified about Michael Peter Ellis’ social media posts that contained information opinions about vaccines, chemotherapy, Covid-19 and religion.
After this, APRHA issued Ellis a notice of immediate action, which prompted him to take an undertaking he would close his social media accounts.
The tribunal found Ellis had made 56 “critical” social media posts dating from August 2017 to April 2020.
They including statements that were “denigrating and demeaning” to the LGBTQI community, posts with “anti-abortion sentiments” and statements demeaning or broadly critical of the religion of Islam and that specifically call for the end to migration to Australia by Muslims.
In his defence Ellis said “he had never refused to give vaccinations or gone against a patient’s wish for termination of pregnancy”.
Ellis’ registrations was suspended in May 2020.
In December 2021, Ellis came back under fire because of “his inappropriate and discourteous communications with patients and his failure to pay adequate regard to patient confidentiality in his consultations”.
Ellis was disqualified from applying for registration as a registered health practitioner until February 6, 2025.
Faramarz Foroughi — Medical Practitioner at South Yarra
A general practitioner who got sexually and emotionally involved with his patient and threatened her to stop her complaining about him to the medical board was also dodgy with billing.
Former GP Faramarz Foroughi, who practised in South Yarra, engaged in physical intimacy and sexual intercourse with a vulnerable female patient he was counselling for her psychological distress and difficulties in her marriage in 2015.
Foroughi gave his patient wine during a consultation, made her gifts and attended open house inspections with her.
When his patient indicated an intention to end the relationship and report him to the Board, Dr Foroughi made threats to institutionalise her, giver her HIV, cause her harm and report her to the Department of Health and Human Services so she would lose her children.
The disgraced GP also engaged in inappropriate billing practices by claiming Medicare benefits for consultations during which he had sexual intercourse with his patient.
Foroughi’s registration was cancelled and he was disqualified from applying for registration as a medical practitioner for six years from June 2024.
Gerald Nicholas Galatis — Pharmacist in Armadale
An Armadale pharmacist was disqualified after he was caught self-prescribing himself drugs and handing them out to patients illegally.
Former pharmacist Gerald Galatis unlawfully possessed and self-administered testosterone to himself 27 times between July 2016 and April 2017.
He also illegally gave testosterone, human chorionic gonadotrophic (the hormone produced by the placenta during pregnancy, Tamoxifen (hormone therapy drug to treat breast cancer) and dexamphetamine (a stimulant) to patients.
Galantis’ — the former owner of Armadale Pharmacy — also failed to ensure appropriate pharmacy dispensing operations.
Galatis was disqualified from applying as a registered health practitioner until on or after 27 September 2025.
Marged Goode — Psychologist in Mount Waverley
A Mount Waverley clinical psychologist with 40 years’ experience was disqualified after she gave a dangerous sex offender patient with a sexual attraction to cats a book about animal reproduction.
Marged Goode was treating a convicted perpetrator of sexual abuse against a child, who was also accused of sexually touching a cat.
The sex offender was jailed in 2014, and has been detained under court order at the prison-like facility for serious sex offenders at Corella Place in Ararat.
The tribunal heard Goode was aware the offender had “sexually touched her cat” during an early therapy session at her home, but downplayed the significance of his behaviour.
Dr Goode incorrectly told another psychologist the offender’s behaviour was “distasteful” but not “necessarily illegal”.
At a treatment session in Melbourne in 2019, while the offender was out on day release, Dr Goode gifted them animal behaviour textbooks, which featured “a large amount of content describing in detail the courtship rituals for animals”, including confronting pictures.
Goode was disqualified from applying for registration as a psychologist until October 2028.
Nicholas Stuart Goodwin — Paramedic at Tecoma
Former Tecoma paramedic Nicholas Stuart Goodwin had his registration cancelled by the medical board on November 28, 2024.
No further detail on why is available.
Benjamin James Nisbet Gowrie — Medical Practitioner at Eltham
Benjamin Gowrie had personal and sexual relationships with three patients he met at his place of practice in Eltham between 2013 to 2021.
Gowrie also failed to appropriately assess and manage patients, prescribing them medications which were not clinically required.
When his patients were questioned Gowrie attempted to influence and interfere with the evidence before telling them to tell the medical board the truth.
Gowrie also had sex with another patient in his consulting room during a lunch break in 2015, while the Clinic was open to the public.
Gowrie was suspended for three years and is disqualified from applying for registration as a medical practitioner before July 2028.
The former GP also had sexual relationship with a third patient.
When her marriage broke down, he purchased a property for her to rent.
Gowrie issued weight loss treatment to one patient, without a clinical justification and also deleted or attempted to delete some records of prescriptions.
Gowrie was suspended for three years and was disqualified from applying for registration as a medical practitioner until July 2028.
Geoffrey Kemp — Medical practitioner at Hawthorn East
A Hawthorn East GP has been disqualified after misdiagnosing patients and putting them on antibiotics they did not clinically need.
Geoffrey Kemp prescribed a range of antibiotics for his patients, at times at higher than the recommended dose.
At two instances Kemp placed patients on a treatment regimen for Lyme disease without having formally diagnosed them.
Kemp also prescribed a patient with medications that would place them at a risk of embolic stroke.
The tribunal found Kemp had engaged in professional misconduct between July 2007 to November 2017, with his consultation and treatment of 17 patients.
Kemp was disqualified from applying for registration as a registered health practitioner until July 2028.
Venh Hong Lay — Psychologist at Narre Warren
A Narre Warren psychologist sexually assaulted vulnerable teens while working for Centrelink.
In 2010, Venh Hong Lay was working as a job capacity assessor for Centrelink where he would interviews applicants for disability support pension (DSP) regarding their qualification for Centrelink.
In December 2016 and twice in April 2017, Lay took clients aged between 16 and 18 years old away from their parents, leading them to an area within the Centrelink office where he could not be observed.
He then sexually assaulted the teens who were each vulnerable because their health conditions, which Lay knew of.
He was convicted of two counts of sexual assault in the County Court of Victoria, and one count of sexual assault in the Magistrates’ Court of Victoria sitting at Dandenong.
The medical board found Lay failed to maintain the professional boundaries that should, and ordinarily delineate a psychologist/client relationship, by engaging in inappropriate and uninvited physical and sexual contact during his assessment of three clients.
Hong Lay was disqualified from applying for registration as a health practitioner for a period of nine years from March 2024.
Tung Minh Lui — Chinese Acupuncturist and Chinese Herbal Medicine Practitioner in St Albans
A Chinese acupuncturist and herbal medicine practitioner in St Albans had his registration cancelled after sexually assaulting his clients.
Tung Minh Lui — the sole practitioner and owner of Ren Jih Tang Chinese Herbs and Acupuncture in St Albans — after sexually assaulted two female patients who he was treating for seeking treatment fertility and irregular menstruation issues.
Lui also failed to failed to maintain and keep secure clear and accurate health records and proper financial records in relation to his patients.
Lui was disqualified from applying for registration as a health practitioner for a period of six (6) years from November 2024.
Ari James Masters — Dentist in Melbourne
A Melbourne dentist lost his registration after providing poor care to children.
Dr Ari Masters — owner of No Brace Centre — provided inadequate care to 10 patients including nine children.
Masters, who was a dental practitioner with an interest in pediatric orthodontics, presented himself as a practitioner who could provide an orthodontic service for children which was less invasive than what is generally provided by orthodontists (hence the business name ‘No Brace’).
Masters’ treatment often went for years longer than it should have, causing additional inconvenience, discomfort and expense to his patients and their parents.
He also made some fundamental misdiagnoses.
The medical board found Masters treated patients beyond his area of expertise, when he should have referred them to specialists.
Masters was disqualified from applying for registration as a registered health practitioner for four years from June 2024.
Simon Nudds — Psychologist in Pascoe Vale
A Pascoe Vale psychologist who got in a sexual relationship with his patient also made false reports for NDIS.
The national medical board was told Nudds offered a patient the Disability Support Pension (DSP) without conducting any formal sessions.
Nudds provided the patient with a draft psychology report which was fabricated.
The psychologist also gave to another patient, with whom he later an intimate relationship after ending the therapeutic relationship.
Nudds then became abusive during the relationship, where he also digitally penetrated her without her consent.
The medical board found Nudds engaged in professional misconduct which was inconsistent with him being a fit and proper person to hold registration in the profession.
Nidds’ registration was cancelled and disqualified from applying for new registration for four years from January 2024.
Beng Poon Ong — Medical practitioner in Melton
A Melton GP who supplied drugs to addicts while treating them lost his registration.
Beng Poon Ong prescribed Oxycodone, Stilnox, and Diazepam to six patients who were drug dependent and when there was no clinical rationale for prescribing them
Ong – who previously worked at Melton Medical Clinic in Melbourne — also inadequately managed the clinical care of patients by prescribing opiates and benzodiazepines without assessing pain or documenting a pain management plan.
He also failed to notify the Secretary to the Department of Health and Human Services (the relevant Secretary) that his patients were drug-dependent persons.
Ong was disqualified from applying for registration as a registered health practitioner for a period of four years from March 2024.
Reshmi Lata Prasad — Dentist in Ripponlea
Former Ripponlea dentist Reshmi Lata Prasad had her registration cancelled by the medical board on November 28, 2024.
Dr Reshmi Prasad fronted VCAT on April 12 after it was discovered she had been conducting procedures without training, had operated without insurance and had overcharged patients for after hours procedures.
The Dental Board of Australia brought Dr Prasad before the tribunal after receiving multiple complaints from her patients.
An investigation revealed she unnecessarily removed a teenager’s wisdom tooth at an Elsternwick clinic in April 2018.
The patient attended the clinic after hours with severe tooth pain.
The patient told the tribunal Dr Prasad had “insisted” on removing the tooth without informing them of alternative treatments.
The patient told the tribunal Dr Prasad did not inform them of the risks in removing a wisdom tooth.
The tribunal heard the patient was then charged $1350, where an average specialist treatment normally ranged between $200 and $425.
The tribunal further heard Dr Prasad failed to have Professional Indemnity Insurance for a seven month period in 2017 and 2018, where she would not reveal if she had continued practice.
Warren Michael Senn — Psychologist in Melbourne
Melbourne psychologist Warren Michael Senn had his registration cancelled by the medical board on November 28, 2024.
No further detail is available.
Jonathon Graydon Walker — Psychologist in Brighton
A Brighton psychologist who was involved in a sexual relationship had his registration cancelled.
In 2021, the medical board was told Jonathon Walker failed to maintain professional boundaries by engaging in an inappropriate sexual relationship with his client.
He also failed to maintain the privacy and confidentiality of some of his clients.
When questioned by the board Walker also perverted the investigation and recklessly provided false and misleading information.
Walker was disqualified from applying for registration as a health practitioner for the period of five years from October 2024.
Craig Robert Wilson — Nurse in Oakleigh
An Oakleigh nurse who stalked his patients had his registration cancelled.
Craig Robert Wilson — who worked at a Community Residential Withdrawal Unit in Oakleigh — stalked a patient and breached professional boundaries with another.
He added his patient on social media platforms and sent her several gifts.
The medical board at the time of the hearing said “nurses must recognise the inherent power imbalance that exists between nurses, people in their care and significant others and establish and maintain professional boundaries”.
Wilson was disqualified from applying for registration as a registered health practitioner for a period of nine months from May 2024.