A “reckless” Iranian immigrant doctor has been deregistered after botching a facelift he was not trained to perform at his unlicensed Brisbane clinic and leaving the patient needing emergency surgery.
Shahram Sadeghi, who obtained his medical qualifications in Iran in 1994 and started practicing in Queensland ten years later, carried out the procedure on a 52-year-old man in 2019, the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal (QCAT) heard earlier this month.
The tribunal found that Sadeghi’s Elinay Cosmetic Surgery clinic in Grange did not have the required licences, and he “had neither the training nor the experience necessary” to perform the facelift procedure, which resulted in heavy bleeding and suffered “significant complications”.
His patient, who spent two days in hospital afterwards and needed three weeks to recover, told the tribunal that Sadeghi has assured him he was “just as competent, if not more competent, than a plastic surgeon when performing a facelift”.
Sadeghi also visited the man in hospital, brought him flowers, offered him a discount on the procedure but told him that he had “done everything by the book”. Six weeks later he gave the patient free fillers at his clinic and said he was “happy with the surgery he performed”.
In a decision published on Wednesday by QCAT, judicial member Peter Murphy SC also found Sadeghi had made “false and misleading claims on his website”, and ruled his actions constituted professional misconduct, and said the conduct “strikes at the very heart of medical training”.
“The seriousness of a doctor undertaking any procedure, much less an invasive procedure, that he or she has neither the training nor experience to carry out is self-evidently extremely serious,” his ruling stated.
“Cancellation of Dr Sadeghi’s registration is the proper sanction in addition to a reprimand sends the clearest possible deterrent signal to other medical practitioners about the dangers and inappropriateness of acting beyond their training and experience,” the ruling stated.
No fine or disqualification period was imposed, however, meaning Sadeghi can immediately reapply to the Medical Board of Australia for re-registration, but must appear before the Board in a process that is likely to take a lengthy period of time.
Sadeghi’s deregistration is the latest of a series of shocking misconduct rulings involving immigrant doctors in recent months.
Earlier this month an Indian doctor was struck off for harassing three female nurses in Sydney, in May a different Indian doctor was banned for inappropriately touching a patient.
In April a tribunal found a Sri Lankan doctor sexually touched and harassed a medical student in Victoria, and in March a Malaysian doctor was jailed for 6 months for filming a child’s genitals during a procedure in regional NSW.
Header image: Shahram Sadeghi.
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