Lawyers for an orthopaedic surgeon have accused the medical board of suspending him without properly investigating allegations he used an experimental treatment on a nine-year-old patient.
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Richard Hocking was suspended by the ACT Board of the Medical Board of Australia in April over allegations he used an unapproved treatment on the child at the Canberra Hospital.
The child had Perthes' disease, which causes a malformation of the hips.
The cause of the disease is not known, and there is no recognised treatment.
Dr Hocking decided to use a platelet injection to treat the patient.
That treatment involved taking out the patient's blood, reducing it to platelets, and then reinjecting it.
A complaint was made to the medical board and Dr Hocking, who had been already restricted in the way he could practice, was suspended.
Dr Hocking fought his suspension, first in ongoing proceedings in the ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal, and then in the ACT Supreme Court.
He has argued the decision to suspend him was unfair, biased, and "manifestly excessive".
Dr Hocking claims he was denied procedural fairness, was treated differentially to others, and that the way the original complaint was submitted to the medical board was unlawful.
On Tuesday, Dr Hocking's lawyer told the court the medical board had failed to properly investigate the treatment the surgeon had used before suspending him.
The lawyer argued the board did not inquire as to whether there was an adverse affect on the child, which there was not.
The board had also failed to question whether there had been informed consent to the treatment from the child's parents.
That's despite the court hearing that Dr Hocking had told the child's parents that it was an experimental treatment, and that they had agreed to its use.
Dr Hocking told the parents the treatment had been used successfully in other contexts, but not to treat Perthes' disease in the ACT.
His lawyer told the court the medical board had also failed to inquire whether Dr Hocking planned further platelet injections.
There wasalso said to have been no inquiry as to whether the treatment was safe before his suspension.
His lawyer said that platelet injections were used widely across the world, and that at worst it would cause a "nil effect", with less risk than using corticosteroids.
Lawyers for both Dr Hocking and the medical board are expected to continue their closing submissions on Tuesday.
