Charlie Teo has treated more than 150 patients overseas and has been praised in China after the troubled neurosurgeon was banned from Australia.
In July last year, Dr Teo was banned from performing surgery in Australia without written permission after the Medical Professional Standards Committee found him guilty of unsatisfactory professional conduct.
The decision was made following findings by the Health Care Complaints Commission (HCCC) that Dr Teo failed to adequately inform two of his patients about the risks involved in “experimental” operations from which they did not recover.
Dr. Teo was known for performing operations that other doctors would not attempt on patients sentenced to death for “inoperable” brain tumors.
With similar bans in the United States and Singapore, the neurosurgeon moved to China shortly after the HCCC findings, where he was authorized to perform surgeries.
Since then he has treated more than 150 patients, including VIPs, in China, Spain, Germany, India, Switzerland, Brazil, Peru, South Africa and Nepal.
Dr Teo’s record notes that the surgeries resulted in one death, one “poor” outcome, three “fair” outcomes, 20 “good” outcomes and 145 “excellent” outcomes.
Many of these patients have travelled from Australia to receive treatment from the neurosurgeon who is often the only doctor trying to save their lives.
Neurosurgeon Dr Charlie Teo (pictured) has been forced to perform high-risk surgeries on patients with “inoperable” brain tumours overseas after being restricted in Australia.
Dr Teo said he still wanted to treat patients on home soil and would only need “one sensible and brave person in a hospital” to do so.
‘Just one person sits there and says, ‘Well, maybe he’s a jerk, maybe he’s into money, maybe he’s a bit of a cowboy.’
“The fact is that patients, Australian patients, some of them need it and he does operations that other people don’t do,” he said.
“Most of those results are good, so how about we just put politics aside and allow it to operate in Australia?” he told the paper. The Sunday Telegraph.
“That’s all it takes… a little common sense for the common good, not for your own good, but for the good of the patients.”
The deputy director of the China International Neuroscience Institute, Professor Ling Feng, attacked the HCCC by thanking “Australia for the restrictions imposed on Charlie”.
Professor Ling said forcing the neurosurgeon to travel abroad to treat patients meant it gave her the “opportunity to work with him”.
“I have carefully analyzed what happened there (in Australia),” he said.
“I don’t think this should be attributed to Charlie’s negligence in caring for and being passionate about patients.”
Last year, the HCCC determined that the surgeon decided to operate on two patients “in whom the risk of surgery outweighed any potential benefit.”
The committee found that he failed to obtain informed consent from any of the women before surgery, charged an improper fee of $35,000 and spoke inappropriately to the patients and their families.
In July last year, Dr Teo was banned from performing surgery in Australia without written permission after being found guilty of unsatisfactory professional conduct.
In its 112-page decision, the committee concluded that Dr Teo “failed to exercise appropriate judgment” in proceeding with what it considered a “high-risk and inappropriate” surgery on a 41-year-old Perth woman.
“Surgery in this situation is not recommended or performed by the majority of the professional’s peers, nor by a responsible minority of surgeons,” it reads.
‘The procedure was not supported by the literature and the physician, in his professional capacity, had a primary ethical duty to refuse surgery.’
The committee found that Dr Teo’s approach and justification for carrying out the surgery were “substantially experimental” and that it was the type of operation that should be performed in a clinical trial setting or subject to other ethical scrutiny.
While operating on a 66-year-old patient, it was discovered that he had “performed surgery other than that proposed” by performing a right frontal lobectomy instead of a tumor resection.
The surgery ultimately “led to an unwarranted and excessive removal of a normal functioning brain.”
During the consultation with the woman, Dr. Teo used inappropriate language, telling the patient: “If you don’t have surgery by Tuesday, you’ll be dead by Friday.”
The woman was also told: “Why the hell are you crying? I’m here to heal you, you should be happy” and “Brain tumors are the best way to die.”
THE LIFE AND WORK OF THE FAMOUS SURGEON CHARLIE TEO
December 24, 1957 – Charlie Teo was born in Sydney to Chinese-Singaporean immigrants.
1981 – He graduated from the University of Sydney with a Bachelor of Medicine and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Sydney after his education at the elite Scots College in Sydney.
1982 onwards – worked in general neurosurgery at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney before moving to the US for 10 years, working in Dallas, Texas and Arkansas, where he became Associate Professor of Neurosurgery and Head of Paediatric Neurosurgery.
1990s – Teo returns to Australia to work at the Prince of Wales Hospital in Sydney and founds the Cure Brain Cancer Foundation and the Charlie Teo Foundation.
2000s – His fame spread and he became a regular on television and in the social pages of newspapers.
2011 – He was awarded the title of Member of the Order of Australia for his services to medicine as a neurosurgeon.
Charlie Teo returned to Australia in the 1990s to work at the Prince of Wales Hospital in Sydney and founded the Cure Brain Cancer Foundation and the Charlie Teo Foundation.
2019 – Urologist Henry Woo has publicly expressed his concerns about Mr Teo’s work and the number of GoFundMe campaigns raising money to fund his surgery, triggering a series of newspaper articles, television investigations and complaints.
2021 – The NSW Medical Council held a special hearing on Mr Teo which banned him from carrying out operations with special written approval from an experienced neurosurgeon, which he says he has been unable to obtain due to onerous restrictions from the approving surgeon.
August 2021 – Health Care Complaints Commission launches investigation into two more complaints
September 2022 – The HCCC hearing was due to take place but was postponed
October 2022 – Three new complaints against Mr Teo have been filed with the HCCC
February 13, 2023 – Dr. Teo faced the HCCC for five complaints
July 12, 2023 – Found guilty of unsatisfactory professional conduct