KUALA LUMPUR, June 10 — The Medical Board of Australia has suspended indefinitely a Malaysian doctor practicing in Australia pending an investigation into his allegedly misogynistic online posts.
The Medical Board of Australia, which regulates health practitioners in the country, said Dr Christopher Lee Kwan Chen was previously suspended for six weeks by the Health Practitioners Tribunal in Tasmania that would have ended on June 11.
“The Board has taken this action in the public interest to maintain confidence in the medical profession,” said the Medical Board of Australia in a statement announcing its suspension of Dr Lee’s registration effective from June 6.
The Board added that it did not have the legal power to deregister a medical practitioner, as only an independent tribunal could do that.
Eastern Health, one of Melbourne’s biggest public health services, suspended Dr Lee, who was working as a registrar in the emergency department at Box Hill Hospital, pending the completion of its investigation into the 31-year-old’s remarks allegedly posted in a Singaporean online forum in 2016.
The Tasmanian health practitioners tribunal had also previously suspended Dr Lee for six weeks after it determined that the doctor’s online behaviour constituted “professional misconduct”.
Dr Lee was accused of posting that “some women deserve to be raped”, besides also posting: “If my marriage fell apart, it would not end in divorce. It would end in murder”.
