A GP who used spinal manipulation to treat influenza and other common ailments will remain deregistered after the Supreme Court dismissed his appeal against an earlier decision.
Sydney GP Dr Richard Francis Gorman was found guilty of professional misconduct and deregistered by the NSW Medical Tribunal in August last year, at which time the tribunal noted his “rigid and deeply held views and his disdain for conventional general practice”.
But Dr Gorman appealed that decision, saying he deserved “whistleblower protections” because he had exposed the wider medical profession’s failure to “acknowledge and elucidate the phenomenon of the recovery of vision, which occurs in appropriate patients when the spine is manipulated”.
In his appeal to the Supreme Court of NSW in July, Dr Gorman claimed the tribunal had unreasonably determined he was not a “whistleblower”.
He also challenged the tribunal’s acceptance of “outdated medical philosophy”, “the opinions of so-called ‘medical experts’” and the tribunal’s preference for the evidence put forward on behalf of the Health Care Complaints Commission, rather than his own evidence.
But the Supreme Court found Dr Gorman’s whistleblower claims were “irrelevant” and ruled the tribunal had carried out its task of considering expert medical evidence as well as could be reasonably expected.
“That the tribunal, after weighing all the evidence, preferred the evidence of the experts called by the Commission does not constitute a denial of natural justice or an error of law,” it said in a decision handed down this month.
Dr Gorman also claimed the tribunal had failed to properly educate itself to understand his medical philosophy.
But the Supreme Court found this was not the case.
For instance, it said that Dr Gorman was allowed to show a 20-minute DVD on his philosophy during the hearing.
“The tribunal gave extensive consideration to the appellant’s medical philosophy, together with the documents provided by the appellant in support of it,” the court said in its decision.
“There was no requirement, however, that the tribunal refer to every piece of evidence considered by it when giving its reasons.”
Dr Gorman was ordered to pay the NSW Health Care Complaints Commission’s costs.