Doctor accused of groping med students’ breasts during demo of how to examine patients

A doctor is accused of touching the breasts of four women when they were medical students on the pretext of teaching them how to do a difficult cardiovascular examination.

One woman said the man showed a strange persistence in performing this examination over others, his hand lingering on her breast longer than was expected for a tutorial.

“It felt very invasive and did not feel right,” another woman told a Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal yesterday.

Their identities, along with that of the man, Dr G, are protected.

The Medical Council’s Professional Conduct Committee says all four women had remarkably similar encounters with the doctor, their senior at the time, in 2016 and 2018.

They allege that during the course of informal one-on-one tutorials he would touch their left breasts in an inappropriate and unnecessary way, without their full and properly informed consent.

One woman told the tribunal Dr G took her to an isolated meeting room on her first day at the hospital and asked her to close the door. “There was no one around.” She told the tribunal he suggested going through a cardiovascular exam, something students usually found difficult, she recalled him saying.

The cardiovascular examination is a complex one focusing on the patient’s heart but also includes the hands, face, and neck. It involves multiple steps, one of which requires the examiner to place an entire hand on the patient’s chest to locate what is called the apex beat — the impact of the heart against the chest wall.

The woman said she felt awkward because this is usually done in a group setting and on male students, but said yes, thinking he would take her pulse or examine her neck.

Dr G quickly moved to the apex beat, she said, starting to demonstrate it on her without saying anything, his

palm touching her left breast.

“I felt like I’d been groped,” she said, explaining that it felt “like sexual touching, not clinical touching”.

“He made me feel scared, powerless and vulnerable” even though she was a mature student at the time, the tribunal heard.

The woman said the man had a higher standing while she was completely new that day in 2018 and needed to build relationships, especially with consultants like Dr G from whom she needed references.

After the incident, she messaged a colleague on Facebook to say she was “cornered and groped” by Dr G, and was told the same thing happened to the colleague two years before, in 2016.

The colleague, who was also one of the complainants, had warned her to “be careful” of Dr G right before the incident happened.

Charges were first laid against Dr G earlier this year, and a hearing in October was adjourned after the first day.

The tribunal, chaired by Theo Baker, continues this week.