A woman has successfully sued a Gold Coast skin cancer doctor more than $40,000 after he inappropriately massaged her breasts and buttocks during an medical examination.
Rene Gomez, aged in his late 60s, was referred to the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal in 2015 accused of professional misconduct during a full body examination of the then-60-year-old woman.
His registration was suspended for six months and he was banned from treating any female patients for the duration of his registration after he admitted to professional misconduct in relation to two incidents - one involving the 60-year-old woman and another incident in 2007 when a 39-year-old woman was asked to bend over a chair in her underwear and stand on her tiptoes during an examination.
The 60-year-old woman filed a statement of claim to the District Court on September 2016 and said the doctor "massaged" her breast and buttocks and "stroked her inner thighs" during the 2007 examination.
Two years earlier, the New Zealand-born woman said the medical practitioner had asked if she would be interested in becoming his mistress, on two occasions.
Last week, Judge Catherine Muir ordered Mr Gomez, who is not registered as a medical practitioner in Australia, pay $48,851 in damages.
Judge Muir said Mr Gomez had been in a "position of power and trust" and "carried on in such a way (that) has, I accept, increased the plaintiff's suffering".
According to court documents, Judge Muir accepted the medical opinion of a psychiatrist who noted the woman had "probable pre-existing diagnosis of complex post-traumatic stress disorder" and had had a "significant relapse as a result of her 2007 encounter".
The woman, who Judge Muir said was "marred with misfortune", claimed she had been sexually molested as a child and had lived with a foster mother who "threw darts at her legs".
In her statement of claim, the woman said she had attempted suicide twice and suffered from social anxiety, oversensitivity towards men, nightmares, depression and "continues to feel dirty and unable to get clean".
According to Tribunal court documents filed in 2015, a disciplinary committee in 2005 found Mr Gomez had engaged in "unsatisfactory professional conduct" and for two years his female patients had to be chaperoned if required to disrobe during examinations.
In 2010, another complaint was made, which resulted in Mr Gomez requiring mentoring and for his female patients to be chaperoned for full examinations for a period of 12 months.
During this time, Mr Gomez breached the requirement 14 times when 13 patients were examined without a chaperone at The Skin Cancer Centre at Parkwood.
Mr Gomez stopped work in March 2015 "to protect his staff from unwanted media attention" but intended to work for another five years before retirement, according to the 2015 court documents.
On Tuesday, a spokesperson for the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency confirmed Mr Gomez was not registered as a medical practitioner anywhere in Australia.
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