farmdoc's blog post number 132

RPA, Australian TV’s longest running real-life series – its 2008 series is its fourteenth – is about Sydney’s Royal Prince Alfred Hospital. ENT surgeon Dr Martyn Mendelsohn, who has appeared in RPA, has been accused by a 22-year-old female patient, of sexual assault during a consultation at his Sydney surgery in May 2005. In May 2006, as Dr Mendelsohn’s NSW District Court trial was starting, the charges were dropped because the DPP said a conviction was remote. Last Monday 50-year-old Dr Mendelsohn faced the NSW Health Care Complaints Commission in relation to the same matter. These events raise several important questions: Why is the Commission bringing a case against Dr Mendelsohn when a criminal charge arising out of the same alleged incident, was dropped? Why has it taken the Commission 2¼ years after the criminal charge was dropped, to start its hearing? And, crucially, why has Dr Mendelsohn’s name been made public when the woman’s name has not? I thought I live in a land where people are innocent until found guilty; and not vice versa. Therefore the identity of both parties should be suppressed until the Commission's decision. Or if this is untenable, the identity of both parties should be made public. I’ve had a gutful of administrative and legal discrimination against my profession. It needs to stop. We need to face down the bullies.