Gynaecologist Dr Suresh John suspended after ‘distasteful’ comments to patient

A Melbourne gynaecologist has been suspended after performing a surgical “tidy-up” on a woman without proper consent.

Dr Suresh John works at Knox, Mitcham and Waverley private hospitals.

An eastern suburbs gynaecologist has been suspended for three months for performing an unapproved surgical “tidy-up” of a mum-of-four’s genitalia.

The Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal suspended Dr Suresh John for three months, effective from Friday, reprimanded him and ordered him to undergo mentoring after he returns to work in March.

The tribunal is yet to publish reasons for its decision.

Dr John, a lecturer at Monash University who works at Knox, Mitcham and Waverley Private hospitals, last month admitted he failed to get proper consent from a woman when he “put an extra stitch in there”.

The woman, who cannot be identified, and her family told the Herald Sun they were concerned about how long it took for the case to reach the tribunal, that Dr John was able to work in the meantime, and that the tribunal imposed such a short suspension.

Dr John performed a hysterectomy on the woman in 2018, but failed to explain that he also planned to perform another major, risky procedure on her.

When the woman spoke to him following the operation, he said: “I’ve done a tidy-up of you and your husband will be very happy.”

He also told the woman he “put an extra stitch in there but I thought it was too tight so I took it back out”.

“I don’t know whether you have been saggy down there for a while, but you were rather saggy, that’s why I have tidied stuff up for you.”

The Medical Board of Australia’s barrister, Marion Isobel, told the tribunal it was “difficult to overstate how distasteful and disrespectful those comments were”.

She said Dr John’s conduct was below the standard patients would expect of a trainee doctor, let alone one with more than 25 years’ experience.

Dr John has since “worked hard to examine his use of language”, the tribunal heard.

The tribunal’s reasons are expected to detail why the board did not impose a longer suspension, which it had flagged as a possibility at last month’s hearing.