Canberra orthopaedic surgeon Richard Hocking is no longer suspended from practising medicine after he appealed his ban, but a severe new restriction has been placed on him so he cannot perform elective surgery on children.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal has lifted the suspension from Dr Hocking while the surgeon continues his ongoing legal battle with the ACT Medical Board.
The medical board has for many months been trying to stop him practising to, in its words, protect the public.
An ACAT hearing next week delving into Dr Hocking's suspension will have the opportunity to overturn the suspension.
ACAT decided last Monday to temporarily lift the suspension until the hearing.
But in doing so the tribunal placed a new restriction on Dr Hocking by saying he could not perform any elective paediatric surgery, at least until further findings were made by ACAT.
Dr Hocking's practice has in recent years been one of the most popular for paediatric patients in Canberra.
According to his website, Dr Hocking spent one year of his early career training in paediatric orthopaedic surgery at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, Canada.
During this time Dr Hocking's website said he focused his sub-specialty training on the management of paediatric trauma and paediatric hip surgery.
Dr Hocking must also adhere to a handful of ACT Medical Board restrictions until the findings of the looming ACAT hearing.
He cannot do unsupervised elective open hip or pelvic surgery, apart from routine primary adult hip replacements, according to the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency website.
This will be reviewed within six months and once he does more retraining.
The latest news is yet another skirmish in the battle between Dr Hocking and the ACT Medical Board, which is overseen by Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency.
The saga has been ongoing for two years and has included investigations by the board into multiple alleged mistakes on patients made by Dr Hocking.
Dr Hocking is no longer constrained by previous restrictions placed on him, which were first reported in 2012, because it is believed the relevant retraining has been done.
One of the first alleged mistakes investigated involved a 69-year-old woman who had to have her leg amputated following hip surgery gone wrong in early 2011.
The board's findings on this case and others have been kept secret.
But following the medical board's investigations into this and other matters, Dr Hocking was, as reported in 2012, banned from doing certain surgeries unsupervised and forced to do months of retraining in the area of open adult hip surgery as well as adult and paediatric hip and pelvic surgeries.
These conditions have now lapsed.
Dr Hocking did not comment.
