Fettke backs fellow doctor
A LAUNCESTON surgeon who had a decision banning him from giving dietary advice to patients overturned after 4½ years has thrown his support behind a Hobart doctor whom he says was also let down by the medical complaints process.
Orthopaedic surgeon Gary Fettke yesterday said the process respected Hobart geriatrician Jane Tolman went through after a complaint about her work was made to the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency went on for far too long.
Dr Tolman found out on Monday her appeal against a finding she engaged in unsatisfactory professional conduct in relation to 12 patients while working at the Royal Hobart Hospital was unsuccessful.
The complaint was made in 2013 and was heard by a performance and professional standards panel in 2015. In its February 2016 decision the panel found Dr Tolman had engaged in unsatisfactory professional conduct in relation to her note-taking, decisionmaking and communication with patients and families.
The Tasmanian Health Practitioners Tribunal on Monday upheld the decision and ordered the reimposition of 23 conditions on Dr Tolman’s registration.
Dr Fettke, an advocate for reform in the medical complaints process, said the length of time taken to determine Dr Tolman’s case was “completely ridiculous”.
He also said the regulation agency was being used inappropriately for dispute resolution, and doctors who did not conform were often targets for complaints.
“If you challenge the system, all of a sudden you find yourself in a bit of hot water,” Dr Fettke said.
Dr Tolman believes the complaint about her work came about because she did not accept the status quo.
In a talk given to the Health Professionals Australia Reform Association national conference in Melbourne in April 2017, Dr Tolman said: “It was never really about my practice, it was always about whether I practise as my colleagues do and I don’t and I never will.”
Dr Fettke’s case made headlines around the country when he was investigated for giving dietary advice to his patients.
The medical complaints process has been the subject of two Senate inquiries. Greens senator Peter Whish-Wilson, who was part of a 2016 inquiry, said at the time that the process needed to change because it was being used to bully and intimidate medical professionals.