LEADING health practitioners believe there is no place in the healthcare sector for practitioners who make derogatory comments online.
AMA Victorian Branch President, Julian Rait, and former Pharmaceutical Society of Australia President, Shane Jackson, have voiced their concerns after a 31-year-old doctor was suspended for six weeks by the Tasmanian Health Practitioners Tribunal last week over comments posted online.
Dr Christopher Kwan Chen Lee, posted numerous offensive comments on a Singaporean forum in 2016, including saying "if my marriage fell apart, it would not end in divorce. It would end in murder", adding that "some women deserve to be raped".
In an interview with the ABC, Dr Rait said, "attitudes that condone racism or promote violence against women really have no place in the medical profession".
"Anyone who expresses these views and condones such conduct really needs to be very carefully scrutinised for whether they should continue to practise, and we would encourage the medical boards to consider those issues accordingly.
"We have a doctor who has been in an emergency department and clearly the concern we would have is that such doctors obviously are the front line, in dealing with domestic violence along with GPs."
Jackson added, "not only do they not have a place in the medical profession, they have no place in any health profession, or society in general".
"We expect health professionals to care and they should," he said.
Dr Lee's suspension commences effective tomorrow, 30 Apr 2019.
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