A Melbourne doctor who had sex with a patient in the toilets of a bar has been cleared of allegations of professional misconduct.
Melbourne GP Rizwan Sami was accused of raping a 23-year-old woman he had treated on 10 separate occasions since 2017 for complex and highly personal matters.
The Medical Board of Australia referred the matter to the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) after the woman reported the incident to police.
She said the assault occurred hours after she identified herself as his patient when the two bumped into each other at St Kilda’s Esplanade Hotel in March 2019.
Dr Sami told the tribunal he did not recognise the woman as his patient when they met while waiting for drinks.
He said the pair later entered a disabled toilet together and began having consensual sex but, when it dawned on him she was his patient, he stopped.
Doctors are banned from any sexual contact with their patients under Medical Board of Australia rules.
The patient said the pair entered the toilet for consensual sex but claimed Dr Sami became violent and demeaning before forcing himself on her.
After a four-day hearing, a VCAT panel ruled the excessive alcohol consumption involved meant it could not rely on anyone’s recollections of events leading up to and during the bathroom encounter.
Dr Sami was charged with rape and sexual assault in May 2020 over the incident, but in August 2020 the charges were withdrawn.
The Medical Board presented the patient’s claims as being ‘"detailed, specific and consistent" evidence about what happened.
It submitted Dr Sami’s evidence was "far-fetched" and "embellished", and he was selective in the matters he did and did not recall by blaming drunkenness "when it suited him".
But the VCAT panel found the Medical Board had not been able to provide evidence to prove the allegations to its reasonable or comfortable satisfaction and found Dr Sami had no case to answer.
"We are also not comfortably satisfied the Board has proven that, prior to the moment when intercourse ceased, Sami recognised the woman he was with in the Toilet as his patient," the tribunal found.
