Neurosurgeon Charlie Teo accused of being ‘opportunistically untruthful’ to inquiry
Charlie Teo has been accused of being “opportunistically and deliberately untruthful” in his evidence to a medical inquiry into two catastrophic surgeries.
Neurosurgeon Charlie Teo has been accused of being “opportunistically and deliberately untruthful” as well as lacking empathy in his evidence given over a seven-day medical inquiry.
The Health Care Complaints Commission’s professional standards committee inquiry is assessing two complaints of alleged misconduct by Dr Teo, relating to a 41-year-old Perth mum and 61-year-old Geelong grandmother who were left in a vegetative state after the surgeries and later died.
It is alleged he did not sufficiently explain the risks of surgery on the late stage brain tumours which other surgeons had deemed inoperable.
As closing submissions began on Tuesday afternoon, HCCC barrister Kate Richardson SC said Dr Teo was deliberately untruthful in his evidence throughout the inquiry, sometimes “changing it midway”.
Ms Richardson pointed to evidence given by the widower of the Perth woman, who first saw the neurosurgeon in October 2018 after she was told by two other doctors her stage four brain tumour was inoperable and she had 12-18 months to live.
He had told the hearing Dr Teo explained the tumour was a “bad cancer in a bad location,” being stage four and close to the brain stem, but he “sold a lot of hope” they would make it to their six-year-old son’s 18th birthday.
She said Dr Teo told the couple ahead of surgery that there was a five per cent risk of major complications — such as death, paralysis and locked-in syndrome — but neurosurgeon Professor Bryant Stokes earlier told the inquiry their real risk was 60 per cent. She added that two other experts said the benefits did not outweigh the risks.
She claimed Dr then “made up” that he had told them there was a 100 per cent risk of paralysis, after seeing the number “100” scribbled on the patient husband‘s notepad after the fact.
“When I impeached that he could not have said 100 per cent, he changed his evidence again, and said ‘well I cannot remember if he said it or not’ and agreed he only said it because he saw 100 in a file note,” Ms Richardson said.
“He was opportunistically untruthful.”
Ms Richardson again used that description when referring to the Geelong couple’s timeline of decision making.
“He (Dr Teo) was opportunistically and deliberately untruthful,” Ms Richardson said.
“He changed his evidence midway about when (the patient) made up her mind about doing surgery”.
Ms Richardson told the hearing Dr Teo should be “rejected as a witness of credit”.
She noted Dr Teo had told media he believed the patient’s widower had been “coerced and hoodwinked” into complaining by other doctors who did not like him.
“The fact Dr Teo could say (he) was hoodwinked into complaining is breathtaking and suggests he lacks empathy; lacks the ability to reflect on what has happened,” Ms Richardson said.
Throughout the hearing, Dr Teo has strenuously denied he did not explain the full scope, likelihood and severity of the risks of the two surgeries, instead claiming he was clear about the fact they could end badly and he tried to give patients a chance of prolonged life which other surgeons would not offer.
Teo went ‘one millimetre’ too far
After days of evidence heard from several experts, a passionate admission of wrongdoing and the analysis of scan after scan, the controversial man told the medical panel exactly what he believes went wrong in one of two cases.
On Tuesday morning, Dr Teo went through his thought process as he pointed to the Perth woman’s MRI scans on a projector.
He told the inquiry he has realised the catastrophic ending all came down to “one or two millimetres” of error.
Pointing to the outskirts of the white mass of tumour on the preoperative scan, Dr Teo said:
“I think I’ve been too aggressive here”.
“If I had stuck to the edges of the tumour perfectly, I don’t think the area there would’ve been so produced.
“I think I’ve gone across the midline here, one or two millimetres, and that’s enough to damage a patient when doing surgery in this area… I think I’ve gone a bit too far here and caused the bad outcome”.
In a passionate admission on Monday, Dr Teo told HCCC’s barrister, Kate Richardson SC, he took full responsibility for what happened to the Perth woman.
“I did something wrong. Clearly I damaged this lady,” he told the hearing.
“Whatever happened, I take full responsibility for the fact it was my hand, my technique, my doing, that she didn’t wake up.”
“The point is that I made an error, a surgical error, I went too far and I damaged this lady – no one is disputing that.”
But Dr Teo denied Ms Richardson’s claim that he had intended to stay on one side of the brain’s midline, telling the hearing he cut through to the other side of the brain because the tumour crossed the midline.
The patient’s widower earlier told the hearing Dr Teo had told him after the surgery that he “cut into the wrong side” of his wife’s brain.
But he said following the surgery, Dr Teo told him he was “not sure what happened”.
“He had made it clear that it was a disaster – that he didn’t know where the line was and he cut on the other side of the brain and cut the wrong side,” the man said.
Moving on to the scans of the Geelong woman, Dr Teo said he had been accused of taking out “too much normal brain” and that the patient had not consented.
But he told the inquiry he had proven that he did not take out the whole frontal lobe, only part of it. He said it was unavoidable that much of what he removed was normal brain.
“Sure, there was tumour here and here – the size of specimen was said to be 8cm,” he said, pointing to the scan.
“I don’t contest there was a big specimen and that most of it was non-tumour, but the explanation was that the corridor that we came in through had all that normal tissue”.
Dr Teo denied he rushed the woman into surgery and said he had since made changes to his consent process by now ensuring every consultation was recorded.
The HCCC is seeking further restrictions on Dr Teo’s medical registration as a result of this inquiry. The NSW Medical Council banned him in August 2021 from operating in Australia without written approval.
The hearing continues.