Dr. Newcombe and the whistle-blower Dr McLaren
Whistleblowers in the medical industry may get praise from the public for speaking out about questionable treatment, but despite the improvements their efforts may inspire, many have their medical careers derailed and are personally devastated by the experience.
A doctor who blew the whistle at the Canberra Hospital has spoken about his experience for the first time to ABC TV's Four Corners program.
Dr Gerard McLaren says he was ostracised by colleagues, attempted suicide and to this day remains at home on leave.
Dr McLaren is a specialist neurologist and former director of rehabilitation and aged care services at the Canberra Hospital.
It was 12 years ago that he first raised concerns about Dr Raymond Newcombe, the hospital's former head of neurosurgery.
Like other whistleblowers in hospitals around the the world, he has found that questioning the treatment of some patients may also involve questioning the standards of more senior doctors.
Speaking for the first time to ABC TV's Four Corners, Dr McLaren described the effect that had on him professionally.
"I've reached the point where I've now crossed the line," he said.
"I'm seen as a filthy rat because I've actually joined the cause of the patients. I've decided that you can't actually be part of the doctor party and the patient party - you're in one camp or the other."
There has also been a very significant toll on him personally.
Dr McLaren says due to a sense of betrayal and guilt he attempted suicide in January 2001.
Elaine McLaren, Dr McLaren's wife, says it was not easy on the family either.
"He said he attempted suicide because he realised how much it had affected our family, because at that time our marriage was very rocky, because he was so immersed in his patients and in the hospital that he had no time for me or the children and we felt, I felt totally alienated," she said.
"And he realised at that point that the cost of his whistleblowing was too much and he couldn't see any other way out of it."
There was an initial investigation into neurosurgery at the Canberra Hospital in the mid-90s and an audit in 1998.
In 2000, the ACT's Health Minister Michael Moore commissioned an investigation by the Health Complaints Commissioner, Ken Patterson.
The inquiry looked at 15 cases and heard a range of criticisms.
Commissioner Patterson was asked by Four Corners reporter Chris Masters if the inquiry had its limitations.
"I was never satisfied that I had really got to the bottom of it," he said. "The decisions of the surgeon to move on from that sort of practice [resolved the saga]."
The man at the centre of the inquiry Dr Ray Newcombe retired in 2004, and Dr McLaren still respects the neurosurgeon.
"I believe that deep down he meant well. I believe that he's done important things in an administrative sense for the Canberra community," he said.
But Dr McLaren has not found it easy to move on.
And that is not unusual according to Dr Stephen Bolson, a former anaethetist from the Bristol Royal Infirmary in the UK.
In the 1980s he discovered a higher than normal incidence of deaths among infants who had heart surgery.
Dr Bolson ended up leaving the UK to start a new life in Australia.
"I think that the important point here is actually that all of the three most important whistleblowing health care cases that we've seen in the last 10 years - Bristol, Bundaberg and Canberra - none of those clinicians that blew the whistle on those situations has never been able to work in those organisations since the exposure occurred," he said.
"I think that's a terrible indictment of health care globally, not just in Australia."
Dr McLaren remains at home on leave with full pay.
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