Defamation-case surgeon denies practising in US without licence

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Prominent orthopaedic surgeon Munjed Al Muderis has denied performing medical services in the United States without a licence after being played a video in court of him changing a patient’s prosthetic rod in an Arizona hotel room.

Al Muderis faced cross-examination in the Federal Court defamation case he has brought against The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald and 60 Minutes over reports published in 2022 that he says defamed him by suggesting he performed surgery negligently.

Surgeon Munjed Al Muderis (centre) with his legal team.Credit: Kate Geraghty

The 51-year-old specialises in osseointegration, an operation involving the insertion of titanium pins into the bone of an amputee to allow a prosthetic limb to be connected.

He argues his reputation was gravely injured by the publications, including through the use of language such as botched and mutilated. The media defendants are arguing the defences of truth, contextual truth, honest opinion and public interest.

On Thursday, the court was played a lengthy video showing Al Muderis changing a patient’s prosthetic rod in a US hotel room without wearing surgical gloves and with tools strewn across the hotel room bed. He accepted the replacement was undertaken in an environment that was not sterile.

Al Muderis can be heard in the video talking the patient through the procedure, which involved removing one metal rod and inserting a new one, and chatting casually about sport.

He has repeatedly denied performing medical services in the US in contravention of American law given he is not licensed to practise as a physician in the country.

The court has previously heard that he has never held a licence to practise medicine in the US.

“Do you accept, Doctor, that you were providing professional medical services to that patient in her hotel room in the video that we’ve just watched?” he was asked by Matt Collins, KC, barrister for the media defendants.

“No, that’s a prosthetic replacement,” Al Muderis said.

Al Muderis faced cross-examination in the Federal Court.

Throughout the Sydney hearing, Al Muderis’ barrister, Sue Chrysanthou, SC, objected to lines of questioning and to the admissibility of evidence brought by Collins, arguing it was irrelevant to the defamation case.

Al Muderis was also confronted with allegations that he berated and belittled former staff.

“On an occasion in early 2017 in the tearoom at Macquarie University Hospital … did you say words to the effect: ‘Nobody wanted you, not even your mother wanted you,’ Collins pressed Al Muderis.

“That’s not true,” Al Muderis responded.

The surgeon also denied that he had called employees and colleagues monkeys, that he used the term “dumb-dumb” to disparage staff, that he had described colleagues as idiots, stupid or incompetent, and that there are nurses who refuse to work with him.

Responding to an allegation he belittled a colleague to the point she broke down in tears, Al Muderis said: “We used to have heated discussions. She used to shout at me; I shouted at her back,” he told the court.

“We’re passionate about what we do … that’s not belittling, [it’s] just because we’re passionate about what we do.”

The court also saw vision of patient Brendan Smith taking a blade to the site around his prosthetic leg in order to clean the wound and sever rotting tissue, telling the camera this is a process he needs to perform twice a week.

“If you don’t cut it off, it just burns and burns and I can’t sleep,” Smith said. “This is definitely not the aftercare that you’d expect after you pay big money.”

The case continues.

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