A Canberra doctor has been disciplined and subjected to practice conditions by the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency – the Commonwealth authority that replaced the State medical boards a few years ago. The following conditions have been imposed on Dr Timothy Dermott O’Neill, a general practitioner in Dickson:

1. Will not undertake circumcision without the use of adequate analgesia in accordance with the Royal Australian College of Physicians (RACP) guidelines.

2. When performing a circumcision he will only use the appropriate equipment required in each specific case.

3. That he provides the Board every 12 months with a statement of the number of circumcisions he has performed and details of the anaesthetic procedure used in each of the circumcision procedures. This monthly notification is to continue until December 2013.

In addition, O’Neill is required:

1. To see a Board appointed psychiatrist, at the Board’s expense, within three months of the publication of this decision.

2. To attend a mentor of his choice, for supervision, once a month for six months. For the mentor to prepare a written report at the end of this period, as to his progress, to the Board.

APHRA has not provided the reasons for these conditions, but we may infer from the requirements that when O’Neill performed circumcisions he did not provide an appropriate, adequate or recommended anaesthetic; and that he used inappropriate instruments. The implication is that he was causing an unacceptable level of pain, injury and surgical complications in the unfortunate boys brought to his surgery. The requirement that he see a psychiatrist has disturbing implications, and one would like to know what factors led AHPRA to impose such a condition.

When the AHPRA decision was reported in the Canberra Times (17 Feb 2013), the name of the offending doctor was suppressed, and the journalist declined to give it to an inquiry from Circumcision Information Australia. Likewise, a request to AHPRA for his name was met with a refusal, and the useless advice that the presence of conditions or other disciplinary action on doctors could be checked on the AHPRA website – but to do this you need the name of the doctor. These obstructive attitudes suggest a greater interest in protecting the business interests of medical practitioners than the health and welfare of the public.

Further questions leap to mind. Why is O’Neill performing circumcision operations at all, when Australian medical policy since 1971 has consistently stated that routine circumcision is certainly not necessary and probably undesirable? Is somebody who graduated as long ago as 1973, and who is now required to see a psychiatrist, really the sort of person who ought to be performing delicate surgical operations on small and highly sensitive body parts? We calculate that if O’Neill was 25 when he graduated he must now be 65, an age at which he (like most people) might be expected to be thinking of retirement.

Finally, we note the presence of the usual sexist double standard. Why is somebody who damages the genitals of boys treated so much more leniently than somebody who damages the genitals of women, such as Graeme Reeves, widely denounced as a mutilator and recently gaoled in Sydney. (See report of Reeves’ trial on this site.) No doubt the harm inflicted by O’Neill was less than that inflicted by Reeves, but the principle is not so different, and the judge in Reeves’ appeal case – increasing his gaol sentence – laid great stress on the lack of informed consent on the part of the patient. How many baby boys consent to have part of their penis cut off?

Details of the registration of medical practitioners may be searched at the AHPRA website here. You will need the name of the doctor and the state in which he/she practices.