A Melbourne man accused of pretending to be an obstetrician and gynaecologist with expertise in IVF is being taken to court by the Medical Board of Australia.
The board and the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency recently filed charges in the Melbourne Magistrates Court against Raffaele Di Paolo and his company Artemedica. They allege the man, who appears to have an interest in homeopathy, has been “holding himself out as an obstetrician and gynaecologist with expertise in IVF”.
On the website for a 2014 “Australian Society for Bioregulatory Medicine” conference, “Raffaele Di Paolo MD, Ph.D” was profiled as a “gynaecologist who specialises in fertility and IVF and has experience in achieving better than normal implantation rates for IVF using an integrated approach with Bioregulatory medicines”.
According to the website, the Italian-born man completed his undergraduate studies in Australia before following his passion for homeopathy at La Sorbonne in Paris. He also claims to be a member of the “European Society Human Reproduction Endocrinology” – a group that does not exist but has a name closely reminiscent of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology, a respected group of medical practitioners and scientists.
Chair of the Medical Board of Australia Dr Joanna Flynn said she was taking the man to court to protect patients.
“Our job is to manage risk to patients, including by making sure that only practitioners who have the qualifications and skills to provide safe care are registered to practise,” she said in a written statement.
“Patients have a right to expect that someone who is purporting to be a gynaecologist or obstetrician with expertise in IVF has the necessary academic and professional qualifications to support that claim.”
Dr Flynn said Mr Di Paolo had never been registered with the Board. Pretending to be a registered health practitioner is an offence under the Health Practitioner Regulation National Law and carries a maximum fine of $30,000 in the case of an individual or $60,000 in the case of a body corporate.
The current registration status of all of Australia’s 619,000 registered health practitioners is published on the register of practitioners. If a person’s name does not appear on the register, they are not registered to practise in a regulated health profession in Australia.
Last week, a comprehensive review of research on homeopathy concluded there was no reliable evidence that it is effective in treating health conditions.
The findings, released by the National Health and Medical Research Council on Wednesday, are based on an assessment of more than 1800 scientific papers.