Brilliant, adored, flawed: Dr Charlie Teo unmasked

This story is part of an in-depth series investigating controversial neurosurgeon Charlie Teo.See all 14 stories.

Prominent neurosurgeon Charlie Teo says he has one main wish in life: to be adored by his fellow brain surgeons as much as he is by members of the public.

But for the self-proclaimed world's greatest neurosurgeon, who lists as his all-time favourite book one which he co-wrote himself, Principles and Practice of Keyhole Brain Surgery, adoration by his peers is likely to remain elusive.

Of the 14 neurosurgeons and related specialists interviewed by The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, not one questioned Dr Teo's excellent surgical skills. Instead, the Herald and The Age can reveal they raised serious questions about his judgment, narcissistic behaviour, charging financially-stressed people exorbitant fees when some surgeries could be done for free in a public hospital, blaming others for keeping him from public hospitals when it is Dr Teo himself who has refused to operate in the public system, bad-mouthing his colleagues and inappropriate conduct in the operating theatre.

"It's my dream that you would suck my dick while I'm doing this operation. That's a direct quote," said one of his colleagues about Dr Teo's comments to a nurse during a brain surgery operation.

Susan Wyndham's book on Dr Teo, Life in His Hands.

Another said theatre staff and doctors constantly have to put up with Dr Teo talking inappropriately about sex during operations. "I remember once something fell down and a nurse went to pick it up and he said while you're down there dot-dot-dot."

For years Dr Teo insisted on wearing to operations his lucky socks, which read "World's Greatest F--k." One neurosurgeon recalled Dr Teo wearing nothing but white Y-front underpants the entire time he hosted her and several other young trainees at a lunch at his Queens Park house while his wife was in Perth. A second doctor who attended the lunch confirmed that Dr Teo, wearing only his underpants, sat a teenage friend of his daughter's on his lap.

"He is grossly inappropriate," said a third who has also operated with him. The surgeon said during an operation in 2017 Dr Teo talked incessantly about sex and continually boasted to colleagues, showing them photos sent by women he claimed were trying to hit on him.

A fourth, while wearing scrubs, endured Dr Teo making suggestive noises while saying "Aren't you a sexy thing?" and "Wouldn't I like to get you naked!" She said she was in the theatre tea room when, in front of other staff, he put his mouth and tongue on her neck and "nuzzled and nibbled" her. "I was a very junior registrar. He had a position of power, he was a prominent neurosurgeon," she said.

In a statement received after deadline, lawyers for Dr Teo said: "Charlie vehemently denies that he has intentionally engaged in sexual harassment."

They added that regarding functions at his home: “The implication that there has been anything untoward associated with these functions is strongly refuted”.

Focus of debate

Dr Teo's career was almost derailed in 1996 when a senior nurse filed a sexual harassment complaint against him when he was working in the Arkansas Children's Hospital in the United States. Dr Teo claims the matter was dismissed and the whole unpleasant incident was wiped from his record "only after he got letters of support from a senator and an oil magnate who were his patients, and from Bill Clinton's personal physician," he told Susan Wyndham for her 2008 book, Life in His Hands.

His lawyers said: "There was no formal complaint filed in Arkansas that Charlie has ever been informed of."

He ran into another problem in Arkansas when he performed a biopsy on the wrong side of a military serviceman's brain. A medical malpractice suit was filed against Dr Teo and the assisting doctor. In 1997 the US District Court, Eastern District of Arkansas, found there was a jurisdictional problem with the case as Dr Teo and the other doctor were civilian doctors contracted by the hospital. Therefore, the US government should have been sued, not the doctors.

"Due to American privacy laws Charlie cannot comment on whether the named individual was a patient or not. Additionally, Charlie values the privacy of his patients and will not discuss their medical history or details about their care," Dr Teo said via his lawyers.

Dr Teo's self-belief is legendary. Boxer Anthony Mundine's manager said he needed the country's best neurosurgeon ringside. "And you know what he said … I'm not Australia's best - I'm the world's best," the Daily Telegraph reported.

In May, Dr Teo became the centre of a national debate when urologist Professor Henry Woo remarked on Twitter that there was something wrong with Australia's health system when there were more than 100 GoFundMe campaigns to raise $100,000 for operations involving Dr Teo.

"If it was valid surgery, it could/should be performed in the public system under Medicare," Professor Woo posted on Twitter.

Charlie Teo co-authored his favourite book.

Dr Teo's colleagues were grateful it was Professor Woo who raised the issue "because Charlie [who is of Chinese heritage] couldn't use the race card," said one neurosurgeon. And Woo, a professor of surgery, was not a brain surgeon therefore could not be classified as a jealous rival, said another.

In a legal letter sent to the Herald and Age prior to publication, Dr Teo, via his lawyers, warned: "Professor Woo is known to have expressly stated his hatred for, and intention to publicly destroy, Professor Teo."

"I find that extraordinary," said Professor Woo when asked to comment on Dr Teo's claims. "I have no beef with him personally, absolutely none. I don't know him personally and I have never had any professional or clinical communication with him ever."

Professor Woo was trashed on social media for daring to express a view about the fees and GoFundMe campaigns.

Professor Woo suggested that "data needs to be collected and peer review undertaken" to "accurately assess the validity of Dr Teo's surgical approach".

"Producing evidence will always win over the staunchest critic," he said.

Many of those spoken to for this story feared they would be subject to a public backlash if they spoke on the record, echoing Professor Woo's assessment that Dr Teo "is deemed untouchable and charismatic with powerful media allies".

Powerful allies

It appears Dr Teo doesn't just have powerful media allies. One such ally is Melbourne underworld figure Mick Gatto, who hosted a fundraising dinner for Dr Teo's Cure for Life Foundation in 2012. "To be honest, I didn't really know who Mick Gatto was, but a mutual friend of ours brought us together a couple of years ago," Dr Teo told the Herald at the time.

Mick Gatto and Charlie Teo at a fundraising function in 2012.Credit: Tamara Dean

Within 24 hours of sending questions to his office, including one about the Arkansas sexual harassment case, the Herald was contacted by an associate of Mick Gatto, a veteran of Melbourne's underworld, expressing concerns on Dr Teo's behalf. He had specific knowledge of certain questions Dr Teo had been sent.

Dr Teo denied that either he or his office had contacted Mr Gatto. "This is absolutely false," he said in the legal letter.

Certainly, Dr Teo is respected and admired by grateful patients and their families.

Hundreds of his supporters took to social media to champion the neurosurgeon after Professor Woo's comments were taken up by the media.

"Dr Charlie Teo is the best brain surgeon in the world. He is the most altruistic human being and not greedy. He is a living saint giving life to those who other doctors have refused to operate on," wrote one.

Dr Teo is adored by patients and their families.Credit: Quentin Jones

Another emailed Professor Woo to say: "Your invective is disgraceful, shameful and highly defamatory," adding that he wished Dr Teo "would commence defamation proceedings against you and your disgraceful ilk, however, unlike you, he's too busy with his time caring for patients and selflessly saving lives".

Dr Teo also hit back at Professor Woo's comments and strongly rejected allegations of overcharging, saying he received between $8000 to $15,000 for brain tumour operations, with private hospitals collecting the bulk of the $100,000-plus fees.

However, the Herald and The Age have seen some of Dr Teo's bills which showed fees of $30,000 and $40,000 per surgery. Further fees to the private hospital and other specialists result in fees of $100,000 or more.

Dr Teo replied that his charges were "in line with those of other professionals in his field," a claim rejected by other neurosurgeons interviewed by the Herald and The Age. Asked whether he had knowingly misled the public, Dr Teo merely stated the amounts he charged varied with the difficulty of the surgery.

Dr Teo has frequently stated he regularly offered to operate for free in public hospitals on patients who could not afford private fees. But jealous colleagues at public hospitals refused to let him.

His colleagues say it is Dr Teo himself who refuses to operate in public hospitals where he would be paid a fraction of what he can charge in the private system.

Dr Charlie Teo is the best brain surgeon in the world. He is a living saint giving life to those who other doctors have refused to operate on.

One of his supporters on social media

"The media is happy to perpetuate the crap that he says ‘nobody likes me and I have been shut out'," said one neurosurgeon. "All of that is such rubbish. He could come down here and operate at any time he wants to. He refuses to."

According to a spokesman for the Prince of Wales public hospital, "Dr Charlie Teo was employed as a visiting medical officer in the Prince of Wales Hospital neurosurgery department from 2005-2012. Dr Teo was an honorary medical officer at the Prince of Wales Hospital from 2012 to June 2017 after which time he allowed his appointment to lapse."

Dr Teo, via his lawyers, said he had previously been prevented from operating at public hospitals "due to the intervention of colleagues who do not subscribe to the modern approach to brain cancer surgery that Charlie practises", but that he was happy to report he has performed several operations recently at Westmead public hospital and this had been "mainly driven by patients requesting Charlie's surgeries".

Dr Teo has been scathing about the public system, saying, "I wouldn't send my dog to a public hospital," according to Wyndham's book. He complained the staffing was bad, the equipment was no good and it suffered from a "can't-do mentality".

I wouldn’t send my dog to a public hospital.

Dr Charlie Teo in Susan Wyndham's book "Life In His Hands"

Dr Teo's "can-do" approach to surgery has won him praise. As one person replying to Professor Woo on Twitter put it: "Charlie is not well accepted by the mainstream. But he's giving people a final chance when others won't. If you're terminal anyway some chance is often better than none. And they don't do radical surgery on people with little chance on Medicare. My sister for one. She died, but had longer."

The same opinion was expressed by Juliette O'Brien about the choice to have Dr Teo operate on her high-profile father Chris, the renowned cancer surgeon.

Dr Chris O'Brien was treated by Dr Teo.Credit: Lee Besford

She said her father knew his brain tumour would kill him. "But while he was alive, he had a choice: continue treatment that could be described as conservative and preserve quality of life, or pursue more aggressive treatment that would sacrifice quality of life in exchange for more time. My dad chose the latter," she wrote.

However, some patients and doctors told the Herald and The Age that Dr Teo often "catastrophised" patients' symptoms, telling them their past medical treatment had been inadequate.

"He tells them they have to be operated on immediately, otherwise they will be dead" and that "I am the only person in Australia who can do this operation," said one neurosurgeon.

In a statement, Dr Teo's lawyers said: "Most of the clients Charlie sees have terminal brain cancer, requiring difficult surgery. Charlie is obliged to provide clients with a clear picture of their prognosis and the risks associated with both surgical and non-surgical options. The suggestion that Charlie catastrophises clients' conditions beyond what is necessary to fulfil his doctor-patient obligations is defamatory and wrong."

'That is what it cost'

One patient, diagnosed with a malignant brain tumour, had most of the tumour removed by her surgeon in 2011. Her doctor expressed concern about the potential damage from further surgery. However, the surgeon gave her the option of consulting Dr Teo who was more aggressive in his approach. The patient said Dr Teo immediately criticised the previous surgeon in front of a number of American trainees. He also said, "You need to have surgery straight away, if it's not too late, it might already be too late. Who knows?"

One of the young doctors came to see her after surgery. "To be honest, it was really easy – straight back in the same scar site that you had with your previous surgery," he said. The registrar volunteered it was so straightforward he had performed the surgery with Dr Teo supervising.

The patient said she had signed an agreement prior to surgery that Dr Teo's fees would be between $5000 and $15,000. She was horrified to later receive a bill double the highest quote. When she rang his office to question the bill, she was told complications had arisen during the surgery "and unfortunately that is what it has cost".

When the patient protested, the person in the office said, "Well, you realise Charlie Teo has saved your life, don't you?"

This infuriated the patient. "I have a malignant brain tumour so don't say that because it is irresponsible and it's not true. Nothing can save my life. And it's beside the point on coming to an agreement on how to pay this bill."

The patient ended up paying $20,000 to Dr Teo plus further costs for hospital fees and anaesthetists. Her initial neurosurgeon had charged $1800 to remove the bulk of her tumour.

"It is not correct that a registrar would perform an entire operation for Charlie," his lawyers said.

Another neurosurgeon praised Dr Teo's surgical skills but said there is more to neurosurgery than the operation.

"You've got to decide what's in the best interest of the patient," he said. "His problem is that he will operate on anything when there is money involved."

Years of positive coverage of his surgical exploits are hard to ignore when desperate families face a terminal prognosis.

"There is a feeling I'm sure among all sufferers that if you don't go to him you have not done everything possible and that's how we felt," said one mother who was appreciative of Dr Teo's efforts despite the subsequent death of her teenage son.

The neurosurgeons said it irked them that the media perpetuates Dr Teo's claims that no one else would operate on them. "What they don't talk about is the people he does operate on and damage," said one.

One told of a terminally ill patient who had three or four months to live who had a reasonable quality of life. "Charlie operated on her and took out the recurrent tumour. But she was left hemiplegic [a form of paralysis affecting one side of the body], she was bedridden and lost half her vision … and she still died in three months."

Another said: "He's technically good with his hands but his ability to make judgments, to weigh up the pros and cons of different courses of action is defective … when a neurosurgeon says to you something is inoperable it doesn't mean that they can't operate on it, it means that if we do there's a very good chance that you're going to be sorry."

Yet another explained that Dr Teo's argument is that he has to do what the patient wants. "If the patient wants the tumour removed, then it's his obligation to do it. But that's not the way it works. Patients need to be counselled properly. They have to know what's in the best interest of their health."

Family won't hear a bad word about Teo

In May 2012, Dr Teo's credibility and judgment was reflected on adversely in a decision handed down in the WA District Court.

Daniel Jordan, 15, at his Dalkeith home after five weeks in Sydney for major surgery to remove a massive brain tumour. Credit: Nic Ellis/Westpix

The parents of a young boy, Daniel Jordan, sued a Perth neurosurgeon and an oncologist after Dr Teo told the parents the Perth doctors had been negligent in not removing his tumour earlier. They later saw Dr Teo who removed a large part of the tumour.

"Daniel Jordan's parents were not given this option of seeking a more aggressive surgeon, a more skilled surgeon, you know, a more technically advanced surgeon," Dr Teo told the court.

The Perth doctors had argued that the risks of removing the massive tumour outweighed the possible benefits, including that Daniel could die during the operation or end up hemiplegic.

In his evidence Dr Teo, the Jordans' sole expert witness, said he challenged a defence witness Canadian Professor James Drake, a world expert on paediatric tumours. Dr Teo claimed that at a conference he said to Professor Drake, "I can't believe what you wrote in that report". When the professor did not answer, Dr Teo pressed on, saying: "You mean you wouldn't operate on a young man – or a young boy in extremis? I think I may have even said 'dying'."

Dr Teo said Professor Drake replied: "Of course I would". Professor Drake told the court he never discussed this with Dr Teo, knowing they would both be called to give evidence.

Dr Teo denied his evidence was "a complete fabrication" aimed at diminishing Professor Drake's evidence.

Judge Bruce Goetze was not persuaded by Dr Teo's evidence about his encounter with Professor Drake, saying that "this finding necessarily impacts upon Dr Teo's [general] credibility."

The four neurosurgical experts agreed they would have given the same advice as Daniel's original neurosurgeon. "Dr Teo's opinions were central to the success of Daniel's case, but those opinions are not supported by the literature," the judge found.

Professor Bryant Stokes told the court that no tumour is inoperable. "Anyone can remove a tumour. But it is at what cost to the patient? And that, he said, is the issue," noted the judge.

In dismissing the case, Judge Goetze delivered a stinging assessment of Dr Teo's judgment, saying he "is clearly passionate about the resection of brain tumours as providing the best chance of a cure".

But he allowed "his passion and his subjective involvement … to interfere with his objectivity and impartiality as an expert witness". He also said this passion caused him "to exaggerate Daniel's neurological condition" to justify his actions.

Despite the judge's criticism of Dr Teo, Daniel Jordan's parents refused to hear a bad word about him. In May his father Ray wrote in The West Australian: "It angers and upsets me when I see this great Australian having to defend himself against a medical fraternity who seem more concerned with egos and protecting their patch than actually doing what they should - acting in the best interests of their patients and saving lives."

Mr Jordan wrote that the Perth doctors had repeatedly said the tumour was inoperable and could not be successfully removed. Not only had they "never told us about Charlie", Mr Jordan wrote, but they described him as a "cowboy" and advised him that you "hear the good stories and not the bad ones".

"Some question why he operates when in some cases the chances are so slim. But he doesn't promise the impossible - it's simply that he might be able to give them more time. Precious time to see a child graduate or get married.

"Charlie gave us 12 precious years with Daniel. Our son was 27 when he suffered a massive brain bleed and died."

Editor's note: This story has been updated to reflect responses received after deadline from lawyers for Dr Teo.

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