A surgeon who had two patients die and was caught by police buying cocaine in the middle of a Sydney street will be allowed to practice medicine again.
William Wall Mooney had worked as an ear, nose and throat surgeon until April 2022, when his registration was cancelled due to findings of serious professional misconduct.
In February 2018, after operating on a 24-year-old patient to fix a snoring issue, he spotted some bleeding but thought he had repaired the artery.
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Two days later, the man underwent an emergency operation because of a recurrent haemorrhage, suffered a heart attack, and died.
In November 2017, while attempting to unblock the sinuses of a 41-year-old man, Mooney became disorientated and penetrated the bone below the patient’s brain.
This disrupted an artery and caused bleeding into the frontal lobe before that patient also died.
In April 2022, the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal found Mooney conducted the operations in an inappropriately short amount of time, including acting with “reckless haste” for the 41-year-old.
He also entered into an inappropriate two-year relationship with a vulnerable 27-year-old patient diagnosed with anorexia-bulimia.
From October 2013, he sent her thousands of messages, went out for dinner with her on one occasion, and prescribed her weight-loss medication despite knowing she had an eating disorder.
There are no findings he had sex with the patient.
Mooney told the tribunal in 2021 he and the woman engaged in “mutual flirtation”.
NCAT disqualified him as a medical practitioner for one year.
Six months after he was stripped of his registration, police arrested Mooney after spotting him getting into a car in Bondi Beach only to get out again a short distance down the road.
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Suspecting a drug deal, an officer ran after the former surgeon who threw a bag of cocaine on the roadside.
He pleaded guilty to one charge of possessing a prohibited drug in December 2022 and was sentenced without conviction to a 12-month conditional release order.
NCAT reinstated Mooney’s licence to practice medicine in March 2024, despite opposition from the Health Care Complaints Commission.
The former surgeon had put a considerable amount of time and effort into addressing his past unethical behaviour, the tribunal found.
“In our view, Mr Mooney has proven that he can be trusted to practise in an honest and ethical manner and presents no risk to the safety of the public and their confidence in the profession,” they wrote.
The HCCC appealed this decision, but was knocked back on Tuesday after the NSW Supreme Court found NCAT had not erred in finding Mooney could practice again under certain conditions.
“Mr Mooney is not a perfect individual, far from it,” Justice Mark Leeming wrote.
“But there was ample evidence to conclude, as NCAT did, that he can be trusted to practise in an honest and ethical manner, that he presents no risk to safety.”
The matter has now been sent back to the tribunal, which will determine the precise conditions Mooney will work under.
He has agreed to work as an ear, nose and throat doctor under supervision for 12 months, to work no more than 35 hours a week and not to self-medicate.
He has also agreed to continuing seeing a psychiatrist and psychologist.
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