DOC RAPPED FOR SHAGGING PATIENT

A MARRIED doctor has been reprimanded over his secret sex romps with a patient – after a tribunal heard he called her “my little prostitute”.

Italian- educated Dr Vitantonio Bracco once counted the unnamed woman’s husband and son among his patients at his surgery.

The tribunal heard Dr Bracco had a second tryst with the woman after her husband came into the surgery to complain.

Dr Bracco of Tanilba Bay, Australia, told the tribunal his relationship with the patient, 44, changed after they went out for coffee in May 2014.

Remorse

The pair had sex on May 31, during a weekend getaway.

The woman’s husband learned of their relationship shortly afterwards, the Health Care Complaints Commission heard, and went to the surgery to complain in June.

In a July 2014 letter Dr Bracco conceded he had sex with the woman once and expressed ‘ remorse’. REPRIMANDED: Dr Bracco must not practise for 3yrs

He said he “did not see her as a patient at the time our relationship became sexual or following” and noted he “abused the trust central to a doctor- patient relationship”.

But months later, the doctor felt “compelled” to contact the woman again after hearing she had been forced out of her home, had no money and her son would no longer speak to her.

He sent her a letter with £ 100 cash and a note asking her to buy a mobile phone and get in touch.

The pair then met at a hotel and had sexual intercourse once again on August 5, in what the tribunal branded “entirely inappropriate” behaviour.

But the woman told the tribunal she became distressed after he called her “my little prostitute” and ended the relationship.

Predatory

The tribunal heard he showed genuine contrition and his psychologist did not believe he was a risk of reoffending.

The psychiatrist also “opined the practitioner’s conduct was not opportunistic, predatory or coercive behaviour on his part”.

The tribunal also heard that the “woman had stopped being Dr Bracco’s patient four to five months prior to their personal and sexual relationship”.

Dr Bracco was reprimanded and had a series of conditions imposed on his medical licence, including not engaging in solo practice for three years.