Embattled neurosurgeon Charlie Teo hopes to open his own hospital
Embattled neurosurgeon Charlie Teo has been black-listed from operating in Australian without approval, but this is his way around it.
Not a single Australian neurosurgeon will give the green light for their embattled colleague Charlie Teo to operate in the country – but he says he has a grand plan to save his medical career.
“I’m hoping I can build my own hospital,” he told media this week.
The neurosurgeon has faced an eight-day hearing over two months about alleged misconduct relating to two patients, aged 41 and 61, who fell into a vegetative state following their surgeries and later died.
Dr Teo is accused of not warning the women about the risk of death and major complications before they consented to the procedures.
The inquiry heard he lacked insight and empathy, swore at the patients’ and their families and slapped one patient on the face in front of their family.
Dr Teo strenuously denied the claims – except for the slap on the face, which he said was the most effective way to wake a patient up post-surgery. He told the inquiry the only part of it he regretted was the fact he did not close the curtains enough and a family member saw the slap.
The Health Care Complaints Commission’s Professional Standards Committee retired on Wednesday to deliberate on whether to place further restrictions on his medical licence in light of the allegations.
The 65-year-old has already been banned from operating in Australia since August 2021 without written approval from an independent neurosurgeon of 20 years’ experience, following a separate investigation into alleged unsatisfactory workplace conduct.
As the medical hearing wrapped up last week, it heard not a single neurosurgeon in Australia or New Zealand wrote a letter of support for Teo to allow him to operate.
Speaking to journalists outside the hearing, Dr Teo said the result of the inquiry “doesn’t really matter” because he has already been unable to practice in Australia.
“I can (legally) operate now but no one is letting me operate – my colleagues aren’t letting me operate,” he said.
His hope for the future, he said, was to open his own hospital.
“In my own hospital, I hope I‘d have a credentialing committee to give me credentials,” he said.
“If you have your own hospital, then of course, you can say ‘I credentialed this person’. Every hospital has the right to credential surgeons, and pick and choose who they want to operate in their hospital”.
“Can I be credential now? Absolutely. I can because I have a license. I have malpractice insurance. I have all the qualifications needed to practice neurosurgeon, but I need a credentialing committee to give me credentials”.
In regards to the HCCC’s right to take away licences after allegations of misconduct, Dr Teo said they should have “every right” to do so.
But, in his opinion, not if “you‘ve made a genuine mistake in the best interest of the patients, and it’s not a mistake that is done through carelessness, it’s actually a mistake that everyone makes”.
“Because we’re all human. Do you take someone’s livelihood away from them because I’ve made a genuine mistake, and I’m trying to learn from it. I’ve developed software now that hopefully means one of those outcomes won’t ever happen again”.
It was “so wrong” to accuse him of lacking empathy, Dr Teo said.
“I cry for my patients when things go wrong.”
Dr Teo said neurosurgeons had previously supported him in an open letter, but all faced repercussions.
“It’s not hyperbole – there have been literally hundreds of patients who have suffered in the last year and a half, who I haven’t been able to help,” he said.
“I get X-rays every day (with patients) saying, ‘no, please, can you help us?’ I go, ‘Look, I can‘t.”.
While he’s been allowed to move his surgeries overseas to Spain, he said that had even become difficult, due to fellow surgeons calling hospitals there and saying he was a “bad person” and asking them not to let him operate.
Dr Teo has come under fire for operating on patients with diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG) — an inoperable type of tumour found on the brain stem — with one leading American surgeon describing any attempt to operate as “incomprehensible”.
The exact nature and scope conditions proposed by the HCCC in the current inquiry were not detailed to the hearing.
However, Dr Teo’s lawyer Matthew Hutchins SC, suggested they would be akin to Dr Teo’s practising certificate being suspended.
No date has yet been set for a decision to be made.