Unqualified medical intern convicted

A Sydney woman who worked as a medical intern at a Sydney hospital despite not being qualified or registered to practise has been convicted, following charges laid by the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (Ahpra).

In 2020, Zhi Sin Lee was part way through completing a Doctor of Medicine qualification at the University of New South Wales but failed several disciplines and was advised she would not be eligible to graduate.

Medical interns must hold an approved qualification in medicine and surgery after completing an accredited program of study and have provisional registration with the Medical Board of Australia, before they can undertake accredited intern training.

Despite failing to graduate, she accepted a position as a medical intern at Bankstown-Lidcombe Hospital for the 2021 intake of intern medical practitioners and worked 126 shifts between 18 January and 9 August 2021. Her employment was terminated immediately after the hospital discovered that she was not registered.

The court sentenced Zhi Sin Lee, who is not qualified as a medical practitioner and is not registered under the Health Practitioner Regulation National Law, to two years imprisonment to be served by Intensive Corrections Order (ICO) in the community and fined her $10,000. She was also ordered to pay Ahpra’s legal costs of $3400.

This is the first time a term of imprisonment has been imposed under the national law. In NSW, an ICO can be imposed where a court has sentenced an offender to imprisonment but decides that the sentence may be served by way of intensive correction in the community instead of in a prison.

Ahpra CEO Martin Fletcher said, “Ahpra and the Board protect the public by ensuring that only registered health practitioners who are suitably qualified and fit to practise can be registered. We will not hold back prosecuting those who claim to be qualified to practise when they are not registered.”

Chair of the Medical Board of Australia Dr Anne Tonkin welcomed the outcome. “Jeopardising public safety and violating the public trust in medical practitioners will not be tolerated. This outcome should send a strong deterrent to anyone who thinks they can get away with practising medicine without being qualified and registered,” Dr Tonkin said.

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