Anaesthetist’s 370-page ‘picture book’ costs him $30,000 for breaching patient privacy
While Dr Lachlan Rathie obscured patient details, there was a greater privacy risk given he worked in a small regional area, the tribunal said.
An anaesthetist who self-published a book of photos from surgical cases that sold just eight copies has been fined $30,000.
The 370-page The Anaesthetic Picture Book, listed on Amazon in 2023, contained photos that Dr Lachlan Rathie took on his mobile phone at Toowoomba Hospital, where he had worked for almost 30 years.
Dr Rathie had told prospective readers that he had published it for the “amusement and bemusement” of medical and non-medical audiences, the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal heard.
“Learn who was given 6700mg of IV methotrexate and who anaesthetised Australia’s heaviest man,” the blurb stated.
