A NSW doctor has been found guilty of professional misconduct including facilitating the sale to his daughter of a car owned by his elderly hospital patient. Dr David George Sare was found guilty of professional misconduct by the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal which placed conditions on his registration. One complaint involved him providing a “gate pass” for the elderly patient to leave Ballina District Hospital before Sare drove him to his home so the doctor’s daughter could test drive his car which was for sale. Other conduct included failing to keep proper medical records and providing inadequate clinical care to two patients. The disciplinary proceedings were brought by the Health Care Complaints Commission which had called for Sare’s registration to be cancelled for two years. The tribunal instead decided conditions should be placed on his registration, including that he does not practise in a public or private hospital for a period of two years unless the Medical Council of NSW determines otherwise. The car complaint involved 81-year-old “Patient B”. “It is not in dispute that the practitioner arranged for his daughter to come to the hospital, that he drove Patient B and his daughter to Patient B’s home, and that he sat in the car when his daughter undertook a test drive with Patient B to ensure her safety,” the four-person tribunal said. “Although the practitioner referred to consulting the patient’s carer, the evidence revealed the ‘carer’ was a next-door neighbour.” They found there was a power imbalance between the “vulnerable aged patient” and his doctor. “The practitioner, in pursuing the sale of the car for his daughter, regardless of the purchase price, was in a potential conflict of interest.”
