A NEWCASTLE psychiatrist found guilty of professional misconduct in 2000 because of his heroin addiction and sexual relationship with a 20-year-old patient has been granted conditional approval to practise medicine again.
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Jonathan Smithson, 53, used cocaine and later heroin from 1996, injected the 20-year-old who was already a drug user with heroin, and surrendered his registration in 1999 before professional misconduct action against him.
The University of Newcastle-trained doctor told a NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal hearing in April he had been drug free since 2013.
He applied for a reinstatement order allowing him to practise medicine again after a number of doctors told the NSW Medical Council the “severe and protracted alcohol and drug problems” that had dominated his life should not be a barrier to him practising medicine safely, with strict conditions.
The tribunal heard Dr Smithson started a sexual relationship with the 20-year-old female patient, who had a “complex psychiatric diagnosis”, in 1996 on the day he received a coroner’s report into his wife’s suicide.
He told the tribunal the 20-year-old introduced him to heroin. Their sexual relationship ended in 1996 and the young woman committed suicide in 1998.
In a submission to the tribunal Dr Smithson said he now had a “more realistic and balanced attitude to life” than when he last effectively practised medicine in 1997.
“Instead of ‘vaulting ambition’ driven by insecurity and neediness, I simply wish to live a useful life, within the limits of my abilities. I have finally become comfortable in my own skin,” he said.
The tribunal expressed “some concern” that Dr Smithson remained on the disability support pension he had received since 2005 when he ceased receiving sickness benefits.
His evidence of undertaking clinical and academic activities over the past 18 months “does not sit comfortably with the eligibility criteria for a disability support pension”, the tribunal found.
“He did not appear to link his assertion before us that he is a fit and proper person to practise medicine with his purported ongoing entitlement to social security entitlements based on a disability,” the tribunal said.
It imposed conditions including that he can only practise in a public health service, under supervision criteria, cannot prescribe drugs of addiction, and must pay for urine drug testing three times a week.
