I don’t know the full story on this one, but a small article in one of the Sunday newspapers was indicative of the types of pressure that doctors are under in Australia, to practice within a very strict set of rules.
The article was about Dr. Ian Raddatz, whom the Queensland Medical Board took to the Health Practitioners Tribunal, saying he had engaged in unsatisfactory professional conduct by providing health services that were “excessive, unnecessary or not reasonably required for the person’s well being”.
That type of allegation is exactly what is wrong with orthodox medicine today. Most patients get less than five minutes with a doctor – barely time to be able to describe their symptoms – when they are rushed back out the door with a script in hand. Any doctor who takes consistently long appointments with their patients can be in a lot of trouble.
The other problem is the “unnecessary” health services and testing. I have found from my experience that quite often doctors don’t order enough tests or the right tests to show up what could be going wrong for a patient. I don’t know how many patients I’ve seen with very clear hypothyroid signs and symptoms, and the only tests ever been run is a TSH. No thyroid function tests, no thyroid antibody tests, no urinary iodine excretion, no reverse T3, no thyroid ultrasound etc.
So often when I do encourage further testing, we find a problem that then gives us a guideline as to where best to treat. Some of these patients have been having the same sets of tests year in, year out, showing no abnormalities, but further or different testing is not looked in to.
So when a doctor does order “excessive testing” he is under scrutiny as if it is a crime, rather than a doctor genuinely trying to discover what could be wrong with his patient. In this particular case it mentioned in the article that Dr. Raddatz had allegedly ordered unnecessary pathology tests for 14 of his patients. 14. Oh my goodness, then man is unstoppable. With the amount of patients that doctors often see in a week – 14 patients that have had excess testing is not really going to stand out as a significant number.
The article also mentioned the doctor promoted nutritional supplements by a multi-level marketing company called Mannatech and inappropriately injected patients with vitamin B12.
If this is the worst the doctor ever did, then the Queensland Medical Board has a lot to answer for. There could be a lot more to it of course – but on the surface this looks like a classic case of rapping a doctor over the knuckles who has an interest in alternative medicine.
Rather than go after doctors who harm thousands of patients every year with unnecessary prescription medicines, surgeries and dangerous treatments like chemotherapy – the medical board chooses to vilify doctors who are likely to be doing very little harm at all and may actually be helping people.
It’s a sad state of affairs for any doctor who tries to work outside the narrow-minded cage of orthodox medicine in this country.
Leisa
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If you google Dr raddatz you will find he was banned from practice in 2000 and full transcripts of the reasons are on the net. Basically he was abusing his privelege as a health provider to make money out of a pyramid selling type scheme from Texas called Mannatech. This company has been in problems around the world for shonky activity. The reason the medical board were concerned is his medical registration was tightly controlled after the damage he did to many people during this time. He was famously seen on ACA telling the reporter how much money he could make out of peoples illness – I wouldn’t defend this chao if you want to maintain credibility
You need to get your facts right before making comments suggesting that he barely did anything wrong. He recommended that patients with the following conditions stop their current medication and replace it with this pill
1) epilepsy
2) ovarian cancer
3) diabetes
4) infertility
5) depression
the list goes on. Perhaps go read the court tribunal case and see exactly how inappropriate his behaviour was and how it affected both the mental and physical well being of his patients. Convenient that he had a huge financial investment in the product, which he tried to hide through a family trust fund and certainly did not inform his patients about.
You can look the case up on the internet. Reference is: Medical Board of QLD vs Raddatz (2000)
He manipulated vulnerable patients into making treatment decisions for his own benefit.
your wrong. he damaged my health for life. you shouldn’t be so negligent with information.