The Barnold Law blog has drawn attention to a decision from last year, Medical Board of Australia v Soh (Review and Regulation) [2019] VCAT 1549 (available on AUSTLII).
Based on agreed facts, the Tribunal found that the doctor’s conduct breached principles of the Good Medical Practice: A Code of Conduct for Doctors in Australia March 2014 (clause 8.9) and was professional misconduct.
The doctor had claimed authorship of an article which was published in Annals of Medicine and Surgery but was in fact plagarised by an article written by others which was published in the Journal of Radiology, Research and Practice a few months earlier. The doctor used the plagiarised article to gain entry to the Surgical Education and Training in General Surgery program of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons.
Orders were made including a reprimand, a fine an that the doctor’s registration be subject to conditions requiring him to undertake education on ethics, specifically academic integrity and research ethics.