Can a medical practitioner, or for that matter any professional, who airs denigrating or biased views on social media, be expected to provide appropriate treatment, care, or service to persons or communities they target?

Recently, the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal upheld an August 2019 decision of the Medical Board of Australia to suspend Melbourne-based general practitioner Dr. Jereth Kok’s registration. Kok had been accused of over the years posting on social media against LGBTQI persons, women, and allegedly “endorsing genocide toward racial and religious groups”.

The board had cited some 30 examples of Kok’s offensive social media posts.

“Some of the posts on a simple reading of them, arguably denigrate, demean and slur medical practitioners who provide termination of pregnancies, recognise and treat gender dysphoria (in a manner that is in accordance with accepted medical practice) and recognise that people who identify as transgender are not suffering from a mental health condition”, noted the VCAT in its order. Read more via Star Observer