Former Australian Medical Association president Keith Woollard has been hauled before the State Administrative Tribunal again, this time facing professional misconduct charges over botched angioplasty surgery that resulted in the death of journalist John Brown in 2005. Counsel representing the Medical Board of Australia on Friday, Fiona Stanton, painted a picture of a man motivated by financial self-interest to perform as many angioplasty procedures as possible in the shortest possible time. The Medical Board of Australia alleges Dr Woollard carried out the procedure unsupervised at the Mount Hospital on December 15, 2005, when he had not yet met accreditation requirements recommended by the Cardiac Society of Australia. The State Coroner ruled Mr Brown died as a result of a coronary artery tear, caused by a wire used by Dr Woollard during the operation. Ms Stanton said Dr Woollard was a shareholder in a company that received fees and incentives from stent manufacturers for every stent used at the catheterisation lab at Mount Hospital — a claim not refuted by the defence. Dr Woollard’s defence lawyer Peter Morris SC conceded his client should not have attempted the complex surgery alone, but argued the mistake represented hubris, not greed. Dr Woollard continued to perform angioplasty at Mount Hospital after Mr Brown’s death and received full accreditation in mid-2006. He is still a practising cardiologist.
