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28 Aug 2024
A South Australian tribunal has cancelled and disqualified a medical practitioner from applying for registration and from providing any health services for a total of four years.
Content warning: Some readers may find this article distressing. If you are experiencing distress, please visit the drs4drs website for support in your state or territory or contact Lifeline on 13 11 14 for confidential help.
In January 2021, the Medical Board of Australia (the Board) took immediate action to suspend Dr Robert James Byrne following investigation into his unprofessional sexual conduct toward a co-worker; his use and supply to others of illegal drugs, and complaints about him inappropriately prescribing (including self-prescribing) and supplying medicines.
The Board referred Dr Byrne, a practitioner with general registration who was training to become a psychiatrist, to the South Australian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (the tribunal) with an additional complaint that along with the activities that led to his suspension, Dr Byrne had provided false and misleading information to Ahpra during its investigation.
The tribunal found that Dr Byrne’s sexual conduct with his co-worker, his use and supply of illegal drugs and providing false information during Ahpra’s investigation amounted to professional misconduct. It found Dr Byrne’s prescribing issues – the self-prescribing, and inappropriate prescribing and supplying of medicines – to be unsatisfactory professional performance and unprofessional conduct. The tribunal also considered that all of Dr Byrne’s conduct taken as a whole amounted to professional misconduct.
The Board asked that Dr Byrne be suspended and prohibited from providing any health service for seven years to reflect the seriousness of his behaviour. It was the Board’s view that seven years was in the interests of public safety and to maintain the public’s confidence in the profession, uphold the profession’s standards, and to reinforce the importance of acting honestly, especially when prescribing. The Board submitted Dr Byrne’s actions were not consistent with a health practitioner of his level of qualification, nor as a person who was fit and proper to hold registration as a medical practitioner.
The tribunal reprimanded Dr Byrne and ordered his registration be cancelled, that he be disqualified from applying for registration, and prohibited from providing any health service for four years. The order took into account the period that Dr Byrne had been suspended under immediate action since January 2021, which meant the earliest date Dr Byrne could reapply for registration as a medical practitioner would be 2025. It also ordered Dr Byrne pay the Board’s costs.
The tribunal considered that whilst Dr Byrne was suspended under immediate action, he had been seeing a psychologist and his general practitioner, completed profession ethics training, and had stopped taking drugs. Dr Byrne also expressed his remorse for the harm he caused his colleague and expressed his willingness to comply with any conditions that the Board might put on his registration.
Read the tribunal’s full decision on AustLii.