Doctor suspended for 6 weeks after calling for rape of women

An emergency department doctor in Australia has been suspended by the medical board for six weeks after he repeatedly called online for women to be raped.

Dr Christopher Kwan Chen Lee, 31, was suspended by the Tasmanian Health Practitioners Tribunal after being found guilty of “professional misconduct” for making egregious and racist comments in a Singaporean online forum.

An investigation into Dr Lee’s conduct was launched by the Tasmanian Health Practitioners Tribunal in December 2016 after online posts that were “readily identifiable from his own words and photographs as an Australian medical practitioner” were discovered.

In one particularly offensive post, Dr Lee wrote: “This kind will NEVER learn. She needs to be abandoned in India and repeatedly raped in order for her to wake up her idea.” Lee revealed in other posts that his wife also worked in the hospital, and once wrote that “If my marriage fell apart, it would not end in divorce. It would end in murder.”

In the tribunal, Lee admitted writing the posts, but said he was “relatively young and inexperienced” at the time and “did not full appreciate” their impact on his medicine career. The doctor also claimed that despite his comments, he had not let his personal views affect his work.

The posts were deemed socially unacceptable with “extreme sentiments which are disrespectful of women and comment upon violence towards or sexual abuse of women,” tribunal chair Robert Webster wrote in his decision.

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Lee, who was previously cautioned for accessing a patient's health records unnecessarily and without their permission 21 times between 2015 and 2016, was suspended for six weeks from May and ordered to undergo training in ethical behavior, communications and use of social media.

Some Australians have taken to Twitter to criticize the punishment as too lenient and are calling for the national health service to inform the public exactly where Lee will be employed so patients can decide whether or not to be under his care.

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