In Malaguti v Orchard [2020] QDC 242 (on AUSTLII) the Court was required to consider an appeal from convictions of the appellant before a Magistrate, for offences under the Health Practitioner National Law (Qld).
The charges related to indications by the appellant that she was a medical practitioner and that she indicated or it could be reasonably understood to indicate that she was authorised or qualified to practice in a recognised speciality, namely medicalaoncology. The relevant publications were on a business website, Facebook pages and a LinkedIn page.
The Court held at [122]:
“In my view, the Magistrate was correct to conclude that the advertisements and statements were suggestive, to the ordinary reader, of the idea that the appellant was a registered health practitioner and specialist oncologist. The adjective “integrative” which regularly appears did not, in my conclusion, qualify the meaning in such a way as to erode the indication contended for by the prosecution. The evidence includes many descriptions of the appellant … however for example the YouTube video describes her as an “integrative medical practitioner” and she is both introduced and described as a doctor. There are many other such examples, set out above and in the particulars, including “Functional Medicine Practitioner-Oncology”; “integrative oncologist”; “Clinical Integrative Oncology”; and “Clinician of Functional Medicine and Integrative Oncology”. These descriptions, published on the various fora, justify the conclusive finding already referred to…”