A cardiothoracic surgeon previously banned from performing major heart and lung surgery by the New South Wales medical regulator has been appointed to a senior Queensland government clinical safety position.
On Tuesday the deputy director general of Clinical Excellence Queensland, Dr Helen Brown, announced Dr Michael Byrom as the inaugural surgical medical lead for the organisation, which focuses on healthcare quality, safety and efficiency.
An email from Brown to staff said: “In this new surgical lead role, Dr Byrom will lead the establishment of the Surgical Quality Assurance Committee to identify and address systemic issues that contribute to preventable surgical morbidity and mortality”.
In 2020, the Medical Council of NSW imposed conditions on Byrom’s medical registration in order to public protectionwhich prevents him from performing only simple procedures and prevents him from supervising medical students.
He is required to undergo supervision and retraining in areas including technical skills, clinical judgment, decision making and communication.
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The conditions follow a four-year period during which regulators investigated a series of clinical incidents at the Royal Prince Alfred hospital in Sydney. The investigation took place after complaints were raised by former colleagues who were concerned about the deaths after the operation. Byrom said at the time that he denied the allegations and said they were filed by former business partners out of malice.
At that time, Byrom agreed to the conditions placed on him and told The Australian that the complaints about the patient’s death were unfounded, that his surgical results were found during the Medical Council investigation to be consistent with those of his surgical colleagues, and that the council’s review of his performance found no evidence of risk to the safety of his patients.
The conditions also prohibited him from supervising trainee surgeons for a period of time. The conditions were all met and he completed the necessary training, with no conditions left in place that prevented his practice.
A Queensland Health spokeswoman said on Wednesday Byrom had been appointed to Clinical Excellence Queensland “following a rigorous recruitment process that included extensive background checks and full transparency”.
Byrom has no conditions placed on his practice, the spokesman said.
“We welcome Dr Byrom’s appointment because of his wealth of knowledge and experience in cardiothoracic surgery, surgical quality improvement and clinical governance,” the spokesperson said.
Dr Marie Bismark, a public health doctor and health lawyer at the University of Melbourne, said many concerns about doctors were often resolved without formal regulatory action.
“So for a medical board or other regulator to impose conditions on a doctor’s practice, that only happens when there are risks to the public, when the risks can’t be managed in any way.”
He said while clinics make mistakes and should be allowed to redeem themselves through education and change, “I think it’s reasonable for the public to want some kind of explanation about what has changed since the conditions were imposed and the reasoning behind the teaching, and to be satisfied that this practitioner is now safe”.