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Star neurosurgeon Charlie Teo says he doesn’t regret performing two brain surgeries that led to him being investigated by health authorities.
Despite both of the patients not recovering from the surgery, Dr Teo said he was acting in their best interests by attempting the operations and suggested complaints were prompted from within the medical system.
‘I did it in their best interest, thinking it was going to help them – it didn’t,’ he told reporters on Wednesday.
Dr Teo was restrained by the NSW Medical Council in August 2021 from operating without the approval of another doctor after an investigation by the state’s Health Care Complaints Commission.
The 65-year-old is famous for performing neurosurgery on cancer patients with tumours other doctors have deemed inoperable, but he has been accused of charging exorbitant fees and offering some patients false hope.
Neurosurgeon Charlie Teo is famous for performing neurosurgery on patients with tumours deemed inoperable
Neurosurgeon Charlie Teo (left) and his fiancee Traci Griffiths (right) arrive for a Health Care Complaints Commission Professional Standards Committee inquiry, in Sydney
Dr Teo said he did not charge a fee for one of the operations that’s being investigated and denied he was selfish to attempt the surgeries.
‘They’re just trying to paint me to be some sort of money-hungry, reckless, non-compassionate doctor – I’m not. I just love my work. I love my patients,’ he said.
‘I’m not trying to deny that complications happen. They do.’
A week-long commission hearing in Sydney has so far heard from family members of two female patients, one from WA and another from Melbourne, who claim among other things they weren’t sufficiently informed of the risks involved with the surgery.
But Dr Teo said he previously had a good relationship with the husbands of the patients and they had been ‘coerced’ into making complaints by other doctors.
The commission heard from a man on Tuesday who said Dr Teo didn’t adequately explain the risks involved with operating to remove 60 per cent of his wife’s brain tumour.
Despite being told there was a risk of partial paralysis and memory loss, the woman opted to undergo the surgery, because she was already bound to a wheelchair and terminally ill.
‘He never once turned around and said to my wife ‘you might not come out of this’,’ her husband told the commission.
In a podcast with Wizard Home Loans founder Mark Bouris last week, Dr Teo blamed ‘jealous rivals’ for the complaints against him, and said they had ‘blood on their hands’ for preventing him from operating.
He also said he had performed 11,000 successful brain tumour operations which had been overlooked by his critics.
‘I don’t know why a particular journalist or particular newspaper, a particular show or 14 particular neurosurgeons have taken on this task of destroying me,’ Mr Teo, 64, told Wizard Home Loans founder Mark Bouris on his Straight Talk podcast.
‘But as long as they understand they have blood on their hands.
‘I really want them to know that. I want them to know that, you might not like me, you might want to destroy me, and you’ve succeeded.
‘But there’s not a day goes by that I don’t see a case that’s died, or was going to die that I could have saved. It’s terrible.’
He added: ‘Can we please talk about some of the good results?
‘The judge at the time stopped me and said, “We’re not here to talk about the 11,000 cases, we’re here to talk about the two patients on the table.”
‘But that’s so unfair, because the outcomes of those patients was terrible.
‘They’re using those bad outcomes to say I should never have operated in the first place. It led to my professional demise.
‘There’s 11,000 other cases out there, of whom the majority have done well. I think that should be put into the equation as well before you start persecuting someone.’
He said he had been victimised by rivals who had used the system to ruin him.
‘It’s got nothing to do with fairness and what’s right or wrong,’ he said.
‘It’s all got to do with people’s agendas. And the agenda is to destroy Charlie Teo.
‘And they have succeeded.’
THE LIFE AND TIMES OF CELEBRITY SURGEON CHARLIE TEO
December 24, 1957 – Charlie Teo born in Sydney, the son of Chinese- Singaporean immigrants
1981 – Graduates from University of Sydney with a bachelor of medicine and a bachelor of Sydney following his education at Sydney’s elite Scots College
1982 onwards – works in general neurosurgery at Sydney Royal Prince Alfred Hospital before moving to the US for 10 years where works in Dallas, Texas and Arkansas, where he becomes Associate Professor of Neurosurgery and Chief of Pediatric Neurosurgery
1990s – Teo returns to Australia to work in Sydney’s Prince of Wales Hospital and founds the Cure Brain Cancer Foundation and the Charlie Teo Foundation
2000s – His fame spreads and he becomes a regular on TV and on the social pages of newspapers
2011 – He is awarded the Member of the Order of Australia for services to medicine as a neurosurgeon
Charlie Teo returned to Australia in the 90s to work in Sydney’s Prince of Wales Hospital and founded the Cure Brain Cancer Foundation and the Charlie Teo Foundation
2019 – Urologist Henry Woo goes public with concerns about Mr Teo’s work and the number of Gofundme campaigns raising cash to fund surgery by him, sparking a series of newspaper articles, TV investigations and complaints.
2021 – NSW Medical Council conducted a special hearing into Mr Teo which banned him from conducting operations with special written approval from an experienced neurosurgeon, which he says he’s been unable to get because of the onerous restrictions on the approving surgeon
August 2021 – The Health Care Complaints Commission launch an investigation over two more complaints
September 2022 – HCCC hearing due to take place but is postponed.
October 2022 – Three new complaints against Mr Teo are made to the HCCC
February 13, 2023 – Mr Teo will face the HCCC over five complaints
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