Renowned neurosurgeon Dr Charlie Teo has today been found guilty of unsatisfactory professional conduct, by the Health Care Complaints Commission.
The surgeon will need to get written support from another specialist before performing certain procedures after an investigation from the NSW Health Care Complaints Commission.
The health watchdog looked into complaints relating to two patients diagnosed with terminal brain tumours.
Neither patient regained consciousness after surgery undertaken in 2018 and 2019 at Sydney's Prince of Wales Private Hospital. Dr Teo was fighting the complaints from the families of these two different patients, who say they were not properly warned about the risk of death before consenting to surgery.
Watch: Dr Charlie Teo defends the high cost of his procedures. Post continues below.
During eight days of hearings earlier this year, Dr Teo faced accusations of wrongdoing by misleading patients, conducting dangerous surgeries and failing to properly inform them or their families of the risks involved.
Following the guilty verdict, a 112-page decision was released this morning, the commission finding four elements of the complaints were "proven".
Dr Teo will now have to obtain a written statement from a Medical Council-approved neurosurgeon to support him performing recurrent malignant intracranial tumour and brain stem tumour surgical procedures.
"If the written statement does not support Professor Teo performing the procedure(s) he cannot perform the surgery," the commission said in a statement today.
The commission's Medical Professional Standards Committee found the doctor decided to operate on two patients "where the risk of surgery outweighed any potential benefits of the surgery".
The committee found he did not obtain informed consent from both patients prior to surgery and charged an inappropriate fee of $35,000 to one prior to the surgery as well as speaking inappropriately to the same patient's daughter post-surgery.
It ordered that Dr Teo be reprimanded and imposed conditions on his registration. Dr Teo is known for taking on risky cases when other surgeons will not operate - but in some of these cases, it has meant the person receiving the operation has gone on to live far longer than how they would have without the surgery.
During the inquiry, there were 47 letters of support from former patients and their families and more than 100 pages of social media messages in support of the surgeon.
Dr Teo is yet to provide a public comment, following the news of the guilty verdict.
For more on this subject, you can read this article: 'Why did he give false hope?' Why everyone’s talking about neurosurgeon Dr Charlie Teo.
More to come.
With AAP.
Feature Image: AAP.