Teo 'separated himself too much from medical community', top doc says

The Health Care Complaints Commission (HCCC) investigated Teo’s practices over allegations regarding brain surgeries he performed at Prince of Wales Private Hospital in 2018 and 2019. Teo has always denied any wrongdoing.

Though Teo has accomplished “some wonderful things during his career” he became much too “separated from his colleagues over the past decade”.

Speaking on Today, Dr Nick Coatsworth said Teo’s case sets an important precedent across the country.

“Any hospital that Charlie seeks to work at in Australia will now have to have their director of medical services and their CEO and indeed their organisation look very carefully about whether he can practice in that hospital or not,” Coatsworth said.

“That’s the sort of gravity of the situation.

“It’s a very important case because the issues of consent and what people understand to be the procedure that they’re about to go under are of fundamental importance to surgery, and, whilst Charlie has done some wonderful things during his career, some wonderful things, there are also some fundamental ethical principles of medicine that we all need to stand by.

“And on occasion, when they need to be reviewed, they need to be reviewed thoroughly, dispassionately and this has been the result.”

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While “surgery needs doctors who push limits”, Teo was out on his own “for too long”.

“I think that the challenge here is that surgery needs its Charlie Teos,” Coatsworth said.

“But you also need to have that surgeon come back into the fold and I think that is what perhaps Charlie didn’t do.

“He became more separated from his colleagues over the past decade.

“You’ve got to be part of your medical collegiate community and you can’t be out on your own for so long.

“Because when you do that, you do start making decisions that you do start making decisions that you think are correct but end up being perhaps not the best decisions.”