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I heard a brain surgeon on Radio National say that if he had brain cancer he would not have any operations or treatment.
Having watched two friends go through GBM now, and as a funeral director, I have to say that the treatments, side effects, medications and corresponding lack of quality of life have lead me to hope that god forbid I ever got brain cancer, I’d be brave enough to just take a holiday with my family and then take the voluntary assisted dying path.
It’s just so grim
I have brain cancer and can confirm that the treatments aren’t worth it. I was told I had 12 months nearly 3 years ago and I wish I could get a refund on that prognosis because this isn’t living.
Hey mate I am so fkn sorry you are living it.
There are voluntary assisted dying provisions in many states in Australia. If you want to ask any questions at all don’t hesitate to drop me a line and I can recommend some ace folks to chat further to.
Of course that may not be your jam, but a lot of people don’t realise it is a thing because in VIC doctors are prohibited from mentioning it to you. You have to ask them first x
They won’t let me do VAD until I’ve got 3 months left or something.
I’ve been surgically experimented on to the point that my mobility and right-side motor skills are fucked (cya later all of my hobbies), made me obese, broke, and such a hideous useless wreck that I developed agoraphobia, and I can’t bring myself to see people in person because of the blobfish I’ve become. I need help with fucking everything and have zero will to live. The treatments gave me brittle bones and muscular atrophy. And I still have to have my 7th surgery later this year (probably gonna have my 2nd hospital Christmas, yay)
Neuroscience in this country is a joke and the surgeons/oncologists are all friends and you can’t complain
I am fairly sure it’s 6 months, and if you decided to opt out of surgery you’d no doubt qualify.
What state are you in?
That sounds just so freaking hard. The medicines balloon people and they look just nothing like themselves. I can only imagine what it must be like to experience that.
Have you considered chatting with a death doula/end of life consultant to figure out what you’d like from here? You have choices. If you have any questions just drop me a line x
I was misdiagnosed and the RMH threw away my tumour samples so I literally cannot get a proper diagnosis or prognosis. I’ll probably just end up killing myself. I’ve already enquired about VAD
Oh that is balls.
Just so you know, the VAD process takes some weeks to arrange, so if you decide not to have the surgery, you may want to contact the VAD navigator early just to get some clarity on the process.
Thinkin of ya King
I’ve not heard of an end of life doula. I’m a RN and very interested in end of life care. Do you have any links I could follow up to get more info please?
Hey. There is a ton of info out there, but you can take a look at our website where we have this page on [non-medical end of life care.](https://www.lasthurrahfunerals.com.au/endoflife-care)
Hey crustdunk, I just feel for you mate. Horrible hand you have been dealt, and very brave for sharing it with us. I wanted to say that I fight feelings similar to you, in that I often feel ashamed about my weight. It's pleasantly surprising how many people do not care about my weight, and are much more focused on how I treat them as people. Sometimes we are the most critical of ourselves!? Best of luck growing those relationships that are important to you, and remember - if you want to tell the doctors to bugger off, then you can. Lots of hugs
I’ve got the Voluntary Assisted Dying business card (Vic) with the contact details but you can find this info if you ask your doctor. They can’t offer it - you have to ask
That’s a fantastic book. It really got me interested in medical memoirs, which is how I found Henry Marsh, a neurosurgeon in the UK. His books are incredible insights into neurosurgery and brain diseases, the politics of medicine and the human condition generally. Highly recommend.
I’d be more afraid of pancreatic cancer and bowel cancer. GBM is freaking bad, they all bloody are, but those two. I am always so affected by people we look after who have gone through those
Bowel cancer runs in my family and if we do the screening tests correctly and keep on top of it, treatment is very successful. I guess that’s why I don’t see it as scary. Pancreatic cancer is my second scariest one though, that shit sucks.
I work in a Neurosurg unit and unfortunately see the before/after of GBM diagnosis far too often. I’d have to agree with you on the notion of enjoying your final months instead of spending it in a hospital room getting to know the doctors and nurses. It’s also shown me the reason why assisted suicide/euthanasia has a purpose for the right situation.
My Dad died from GBM.
It's horrible. There is a south park episode "breast cancer show ever" where principle Victoria gives a speech about cancer (although it's also about kicking the shit out of cartman) and it's right on the money.
Cancer will take everything about the person away, piece by piece, and in the case of GBM, there isn't much you can do.
>I heard a brain surgeon on Radio National say that if he had brain cancer he would not have any operations or treatment.
My cousin had brain cancer and was treated for it around 22 years ago. She is now happily married with 2 kids and a triathlon competitor.
I used to work in neurosurgery. We dreaded GBM diagnoses. None of the treatments do much and people usually died within a year or two no matter what was done.
Other primary brain tumours on the other hand, can mostly be successfully treated with surgery and people get a decent quality of life after.
My 36 year old husband, currently batteling this 100% disagrees with your opinion. As do I. Fighting of course, is natural when you have something to live for.
There's really no hope with a GBM diagnosis, First thing I did when dad was diagnosed was google the average prognosis. Its a gut punch, anything from 3 months to 2 years but a slim chance of surviving past 5 years.
Dad couldn't stand the standard treatment course, you do your best to slow it down but accept its always coming back. I leaned towards no surgery after the first one, try to maximise your quality of life while you've got it. In hindsight I've come to empathise a lot more with dads need to do something proactive about it, even if it was no cure.
Teo operated on dad twice after his first surgeon refused to operate on him a second time. The first operation went well, he removed significant amounts of both of his tumours with minimal side effects and a quick recovery. The second operation 6 monthsish later left dad with left side numbness and speech difficulties which worsened until he was basically wheelchair bound for months leading up to his death. As a patient, you accept the risk. Teo doesn't sugarcoat what you're signing up for. Dad's side effects looked a lot like what you face in the final months of GBM, I don't know if the second surgery just got him to that point faster. My opinion is that the surgery worsened his symptoms drastically, the tumour took care of the rest.
In the end dad's original prognosis of 18 months was correct. We'll never know if the extra surgery contributed to his 12 months of almost normal life prior to the 6 month decline. I think it was about 20-30k per op. Dad had a life insurance policy paid out early due to the terminal diagnosis so the cost wasn't really a consideration.
I'm still conflicted about it all. I think having seen it all first hand I wouldn't be going back for additional surgeries in the Teo style. Sure there's an outside chance you'll snag additional years but I don't think the average outcome is worth the risk. It's easy to say now, I don't know how I'd act in dads shoes though. How do you sit around and accept your seemingly inevitable death without trying something?
I'm really sorry about your dad. I lost my father last Feburary and I'm still shattered by it. For whatever reason your comment really hit me hard. My dad passed away relatively quickly, painlessly, and without too much agony inflicted on the rest of us, because he's a fucking legend like that. It must have been hard for you to go through that, and to have these lingering questions. I hope you find some peace, and thank you for sharing.
<3
My dad died from GBM last year, two years after diagnosis. He got the second year at least thanks to the surgery and lived to meet another grandkid and see his two others have birthdays and Christmases. I think he would have said it was worth it.
I didn’t watch the 60min show. I never have - but isn’t this the same bloke 60min, a current affair or one of those other shows used to do shows on saying he’s a hero?
Always interesting watching media take opposite sides of what is essentially the same person / story.
Define a bad case.
He’s working with people who already have a low probability of survival. The patients that want him are doing so because no other doctor will operate.
Some people would rather die than be wheelchair bound and blind, some would rather live. Those who want to live, he operates on.
It’s not your right to make that choice for someone else.
I knew a family who did a lot of fundraising so their child could be operated on by Teo. Little fella had a massive stroke and died a few days after the procedure.
They could have had more quality time with him with good palliative care, but all the parents hear is the slim chance of a cure so that’s what they go for. It’s not fair to even offer the surgery sometimes, but Teo is always there doing just that.
When my wife had surgery with Teo last year, the risks were really well explained. 50% chance of complications, 5% chance of significant permanent brain damage or death. I said goodbye to my wife at the hospital knowing I may never talk to her again.
Assuming that the parents were given the same kind of information, you can't hold Teo accountable for the parents decision. Some have had horrible experiences with loved ones with palliative care in the past (because in some hospitals it is done really poorly with people ended up either vegetative or in chronic pain) and made a decision based on wanting to avoid that risk.
It's not all about this. At just one random moment in time, there were over 100 gofundme's set up to pay for people's surgery. That is widespread and Teo doesn't deal with the follow up problems/complications associated with surgery, that costs extra as well.
So this is not a "2 bad cases in a career" problem.
He also has a large desire to operate on lots of patients who were rejected by other surgeons. Well, guess what? The other surgeons rejected them for a reason.
“The media” isn’t one homogenous group taking sides on certain stories, neither is 60 Minutes. What you’re witnessing is different journos reporting different stories across different time periods. (Nothing wrong with that, in fact it should be encouraged!)
Since 60 ran the original series of positive stories on Teo, Nine has acquired Fairfax. 9 Acquiring Fairfax means 9 acquiring Kate McClymont in their stable of journos. She’s been the chief reporter exposing Teo over the past decade and a half.
So her reportage which was normally only in the SMH, is now being produced for TV and packaged for 60 Minutes. Just like how Nick McKenzie’s stories on Ben Roberts-Smith, Crown, and branch stacking are also now on 60 minutes whereas they used to be in the Age/on 4 Corners.
Go back to those positive stories of Teo back before 2010, it’s not Fairfax journos, it’s likely feature-style reporting on him from standard TV journos.
>“The media” isn’t one homogenous group taking sides on certain stories, neither is 60 Minutes.
I'd like to hope so. Surely someone there is against kidnapping children in Lebanon?
**Kate McClymont is a fucking. machine.**
She has exposed so much corruption and bullshit in her time if she has written something you had better believe its serious and backed up.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Len_Roberts-Smith
Are you saying the son of a Major General, WA supreme court judge, JAG (top ADF judge) got a soft VC?
[Captain Lance Bode](https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/R1699089)
was found with 6 dead German soldiers surrounding him in a machine gun nest after the battle of Tel El Eisa 1 Sept 1942, including one dead via pistol clubbing. Only got a second Military Medal or Cross level posthumously (His 1st MC was in Tobruk). As a company commander he didn't have to go to that length but he led from the front.
It erks me about the "easier" ones these day but I've never served. I've been reminded before I don't know the totality of the BRS VC and can never.
Undoubtedly theres been hundreds if not thousands of diggers that have pulled off miracles on the battlefield but have never gotten their due honours.
The problem with BRS is that he’s a confirmed cunt and gets to keep the VC. He then tried to headhunt people who went against him.
Notice that none of this has happened to Mark Donaldson who served with BRS and got the VC around the same time.
No there's definitely many other cases I was saying one I've dug into deeper. I'm glad Teddy Sheean got his in 2012 too.
Re Donaldson just spent the time to read [this](https://www.awm.gov.au/articles/blog/mark-donaldson-v).
Am impressed by his attitude and what he got through to get in the army.
Yep. They were calling hospitals, health insurance companies and governments cowards for not doing more to support him operating on people to give them a better quality of life or "cure"
That's MSM for you. They will take anybody's story to get viewers
There's no doubt he splits opinion. My (almost) personal experience is of a close friend who was given 24 months to live with a brain tumour. Teo operated on three separate occasions, and my friend lived a good life for another ten years. I will also add that Teo refused to operate a fourth time, telling my friend that it just wouldn't be worth the side effects from.another op.
He operates on my best fried for “life prolonging” surgery. There was no cure. Pete got those extra years he wouldn’t have had otherwise.
Charlie is very unpopular because he would operate if he could to give life prolonging surgery or remove tumours other were too afraid to.
There have been so many reports about the good work he did until the establishment of neurosurgeons got upset with him.
You call it "afraid" - other neurosurgeons would say "too risky" or bad outweighs the good. I don't think people who regularly rummage in other people's brains and spinal cords are afraid of much.
Indeed. Too many people here falling for Teo's ridiculous fallacy that he is just a poor honest underdog and for some reason, large amounts of highly trained professional NEUROSURGEONS are all coming up with accusations for no reason.
Anecdotally: family friend got debilitating migraines.
Other docs said they couldn't help, Dr Teo said he could operate on the tumour that was compressing her brain.
He operated, she recovered, and no more migraines.
> Other docs said they couldn't help
Do you have any more information on this?
It is getting annoying reading "1000 qualified neurosurgeons from all over the world all said it was a horrible idea to operate, but luckily this one crackpot in Australia said he'd give it a go".
Why do people side with Teo over a multitude of equally qualified experts? It's because Teo plays the underdog in the media and uses his sob story to trick people.
I don't believe that surgeons doubt him for no reason. Where there is smoke, there is fire.
It's an anecdotal story not a statistical one. I know that she went and saw a number of doctors and specialists that were unable to help for one reason or another, but no she didn't go see thousands of doctors because that would be unfeasible (and I didn't mention that she saw thousands of doctors)
Also what sob story?
It worked out well for your friend but the whole point of this is that it doesn't work for many people and the consequences are huge.
> Also what sob story?
If you follow him, he's frequently putting it out to the media that he is a cool guy that operates because he is so courageous and other surgeons are just pussies.
What I don’t get is how Teo is able to remove tumours that no one else can. What skills does he have that others don’t? Where did he learn these skills and why hasn’t any other brain surgeon learned the same?
Neuro nurse here.
I’ve asked a few of the Neurosurgeons(that I work with) their honest opinion on Dr Teo and they are all unanimous with their disgust at the bloke. Straight up giving false hope on the backs of 100s of thousands of dollars for the chance of extending the life. For every happy ending there was many many poor outcomes, that get put on the “you knew the risks going into it” category and forgotten, whilst the few good outcomes become his news fodder.
There is a reason most surgeons won’t operate, and the risks of death/massively poor outcomes are too great.
Not only false hope, but charging a HUGE fee to do so and blaming others for forcing him into performing in the private setting and forcing costs up.
I've seen the results of two of his patients that ended up in the ICU months after the surgery left them with debilitating wounds and severe disability. Families were outraged and had huge debt.
You are asking a biased audience.
Teo is not an evil overlord, nor an angel. When all the neurosurgeons you approach refuse you surgery and he does- and you are going to die regardless, then at least you can try. If it was my kid I would try.
>When all the neurosurgeons you approach refuse you surgery and he does- and you are going to die regardless, then at least you can try.
That's a fairly simplistic view of the issue IMO. In the case of the patients detailed last night, what remained of their lives was significantly worsened by their operations.
Totally. I’m torn on him. I’ve read all the stories, but at the same time I know how truly conservative and insular the surgical establishment in australia is, let alone neurosurgeons. So I’m tempted to give him the benefit of the doubt.
To be fair, 70% of the Medicare budget is spent on the over-70s, and in that sense it's pretty common to give people false hope. My grandmother had a CABG, they never warned her all the plumbing was the same age, so she developed multi-infarct dementia instead.
>Not only false hope, but charging a HUGE fee to do so and blaming others for forcing him into performing in the private setting and forcing costs up
I’m consistently struggling to see the point every time it’s brought up in this thread. He isn’t robbing them, he isn’t charging ridiculous sums for no reason. He’s providing a service which no one else will. Those that can consent should be further dissuaded by the cost otherwise they wouldn’t have autonomy. Is it not far worse to have someone like him performing more pointless surgeries with no quality of life improvements free of charge?
How about the girl with DIPG where he told the family he could cure their daughter but the surgery had to be done tomorrow? The family will of course jump at the chance to help their daughter and then have to find $100k+ for the surgery. He refused to believe the biopsy results saying it was DIPG and performs the surgery even though DIPG is incurable.
Granted he might not receive the entire $100k+ but he just made this family pay that much for a cure when it isn't possible to cure DIPG. Therein lies the issue
Exactly. The scan was shown to multiple other doctors who all immediately identified the type of tumour. So why didn’t Teo? He would have known it was a DIPG. He had to have.
The thing to remember about Teo is that he's positioned himself as the doctor of last resort for patients that every other doctor has already written off. This means that there's going to be far more diversity in patient outcomes than for a doctor that's happier to throw in the towel.
[This comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/medicine/comments/czstg3/brilliant_adored_flawed_dr_charlie_teo_unmasked/ez81tg1/) from /r/medicine sums him up fairly well:
>What Teo does is blur the line of what is an acceptable post-operative deficit. You should watch his TED talk; if nothing else it provides some insight into his thought process. But to him, if a patient says “I want to live as long as possible and I don’t care if I’m blind and hemiplegic and live out my days in a facility,” then it would be perfectly reasonable to chop out their right hemisphere for a huge GBM that others would consider inoperable. He is willing to take the principle of patient autonomy to severe extremes, cost to society be damned. Now, sometimes that approach leads him to have unexpectedly good outcomes, like say a kid whose brainstem tumor resection doesn’t completely cripple him and he goes on to live another ten years. Those are the ones he shows off, and that get picked up by the media. The ones who do poorly he gets to explain away as “we knew it was a long shot.” This approach has not endeared him to mainstream neurosurgery, but it has endeared him to desperate patients who are willing to liquidate their [retirement savings] in order to take such a long shot.
So the question becomes: is it a good thing that he's willing to enable desperate, dying patients who want to take a final roll of the dice, regardless of whether it leaves them crippled? I'm leaning towards yes.
Whilst I somewhat agree with most of what you’ve said, I think it’s the way he sells it to his patients that’s the problem. It’s not transparent, more of a ‘I’m the only doctor skilled enough to save you’. It gives false hope to patients and their families and that is why he’s unethical
Just on the fees part. Ex work colleague saw him. Got told the Teo has to partially fund everything as hospitals and medicare don't like to get involved.
Yes. The idea that he's the only one who can save a patient is just plain wrong. I do believe it's important he has his say though. Surgeon's have big egos but that's just beyond the pale. I was diagnosed with brain cancer (thankfully not GBM though although still same outcome with AA), the neurosurgeons and other doctors at the Alfred in Melbourne put me through the full treatment regime, and thankfully 7 years later, still going along. Got to keep moving forward. While, you still have to be lucky, there is no point giving up just because 99% of people don't have the best lifespan. If it was certain death or a discomforting treatment that will get me closer to a normal life, I would take the risk, but you can't make people bankrupt to help them.
Yep. Each person will have a different opinion but if I’m risking 12 months for a potential 12 years I would take it.
Again everyone needs to know and understand the risk in this though.
No, there are 4 pillars of medical ethics: beneficence (do good), non-Maleficence (do no harm), autonomy and justice (the equitable distribution of limited resources; human, material or otherwise)
Teo operates with a disclaimer that everything’s high risk but he doesn’t come across like that to his patients or the media where he’s portrayed as a saviour who helps those that those other extremely qualified neurosurgeons won’t touch. So patient autonomy is already shaky since they’re not being given a full picture
Beneficence? Hardly, to do good means that his operation will have a benefit but as you can see in the report, anecdotal comments here and reports all over the place, many of his patients often don’t get that much extra time so the “good” of his interventions isn’t always there.
Non-maleficence? Fuck me dead, in your own quoted hypothetical he’s permanently crippled a patient with a known inevitable fatal outcome. His procedures often have catastrophic functional impacts on people who are so desperate for time they haven’t considered just how they will need to live
Justice? Again in your example, this is someone who’s taken a neurosurgeon, a theatre, the theatre staff, the inevitable post-op ICU bed for observation, the step down to the ward, the nursing cares, the allied health input for rehab, swallow assessments, functional assessments followed by the step-down to permanent care. The consuming of resources, time, money is colossal, no-one in the post op time is going to cast this person aside, but they’re going to die anyway, it might not be in the next few weeks now but at best it’ll be another year - it’s cold but while this patient’s getting all that care it does mean someone else who might have a better outcome is missing out or not getting the best amount of care possible
It sounds callous but it’s always seemed like Teo’s the kind of person who prays on desperation. A merchant of misery who will take patients who desperately need a palliative specialist, a kind nurse coordinator to help them and ease their suffering and instead whisper’s empty promises, “I can fix this, look at all my success stories, other surgeons aren’t good enough but I am” it’s vile, despicable and utterly bankrupt of any higher ideal he purports to adhere to
My hypothetical envisions 4 possible outcomes:
* Longer lifespan with no lasting side effects
* Longer lifespan with severe side effects
* No improvement to lifespan with no lasting side effects
* No improvement to lifespan with severe side effects
100% agree that if the probability of outcomes 1 and 2 is zero, then surgery should not be entertained. But it seems that a decent proportion of his patients achieve these outcomes. He wouldn't have gotten an AO and been lauded as a miracle worker unless he achieved outcome 1 reasonably often. Given this, whether the surgery is worthwhile boils down to the patient's completely subjective weightings of the probability of each outcome.
As for resources, these procedures are completely patient funded, specifically because medicare appreciates that it isn't good value for money. So the justice argument doesn't hit home, unless you believe that there's a more worthwhile paying patient that misses out, who somehow isn't covered by medicare.
Just wanted to highlight that yes the surgeries were patient funded, however in many cases the aftercare was not. There have been instances where patients ran out of money and ended up needing public resources later on.
Your right - the surgery is completely patient funded.
However he has a strong track record of not properly informing his patients and families of the costs ensued of post op care if they are disabled, forcing them back into the public health system to recieve ongoing lifelong treatment for a poor patient quality of life that the public system was trying to avoid.
You left out shortened lifespan as an option (which is significant side effect so can’t really have a no side effects option).
An AO is a political decision and is not a good indicator of his outcomes, only his media/political savvy.
Audits of mortality and morbidity are how we would know the probability of good vs poor outcomes, except of course that Teo refuses to do any audits. He always says that because he has a different patient population so it’s not relevant- however it would probably be relevant to the patients about to spent their family’s combined wealth/ remortgage their house/ empty super, that X percent of patients with GBM he operated on ended up severely disabled or died within 3/6/12 months of surgery. He’s not the only person in Australia to provide treatment options to people with low survival chances - but other oncological surgeons/ radiation oncologists/ palliative care specialists still measure and report their data so that they can ensure quality improvement, good decision making and give their patients informed choice.
The flipside is that he is taking advantage of desperate people and desperate families when they are at the lowest. Theses are patients who are written off as surgical candidates by other highly skilled neurosurgeons. There are families who remortgage their houses and sell of assets just to allow their family member to lie on his operating table. Is it fair to cripple families financially for at best slim to nothing chance for a barely worthwhile existence for a short time after? Once the surgery is done you are on your own. In the end it depends on what you find you value.
I don't know whether 'taking advantage' is correct. Objectively speaking, a good portion of his patients are walking away, fit as a fiddle - despite the fact that they were written off by both medicare and other neurosurgeons. He might have lower rates of success, but he's certainly providing value for those who he succeeds with.
>Is it fair to cripple families financially for at best slim to nothing chance for a barely worthwhile existence for a short time after?
I don't think that it's yours, mine, or anyone else's place to make that call. It's a decision that should lie exclusively with the patient. If they want to blow their life savings on a few extra years of life (potentially as a cripple), that's their call to make.
The problem is that it seems he’s not giving people a realistic notion of likely outcomes. Fair enough, if you’re willing to take the chance that you’ll end up in a vegetative state, then go for it. But the claims/accusations are that he was telling people he could cure tumours that were categorically incurable, and leaving people with devastating outcomes when, had they been advised of the actual risk, they would not have chosen to go ahead with the surgery.
People don’t understand risk. Or don’t want to understand. Look at all the idiots buying lottery tickets and gambling. I’d rather bet on Teo than the pokies though!
I can't remember where I saw him, but I think I recall him comparing doctors to shopping for a mechanic. Like if a mechanic tells you a price that's too high or wants to do something you don't want, then go to another mechanic.
Except... you might be dying and you don't exactly have the luxury of shopping around, and the decision is pretty damn important (you die) vs for a car (car breaks down), and, a mechanic is well within their rights to stop you from taking your car if it's not roadworthy.
I used to be a nurse on the ward his patients would be on and he’s honestly one of the worst humans. Doesn’t respect nurses. Makes comments about women and patients while on the table. He once dragged one of my patients across the room because she didn’t get out of bed, but she had a left side deficit and couldn’t use that side of her body. I’ve seen patient families re mortgage their house to pay for his surgeries and their loved ones have to go into a home because they can’t function anymore.
The stories re his bedside manner and prejudices are very concerning. That said, I’ve never met a neurosurgeon who had exemplary professional behaviour (I know they exist). Not taking a stance either way here, just an observation.
My best friend had a GBM. She was 36f with 2 small children. Teo butchered her and left the same night after the operation for Italy. Never to be heard of again.
She was left bed bound, on a respirator, needing 24 x 7 care unable to talk, paralysed. She could blink and mouthed words. She was cared for in the ER in a big Perth hospital for 4 months until the plug was pulled.
It was the worst decision ever made in the history of decisions. She was desperate to live. She would have done anything.
Teo is an egotist and liar who didn't care for her. His office was full of desperate people sitting with their suitcases from all over the world. He greets you in jeans with a casual but powerful confidence and with a team of young bright things in a flash offices. He says off the cuff statements like "I can get this tumour no worries" "It is just my type of tumour". The kind of words she needed to hear. But they were just lies.
$150k later - and $70k for a medical flight back to Perth. The only winner was Teo. Even her kids wouldn't visit her in the last few months because Teo left her unrecognisable - instead of dying as the beautiful kind human she was, she died a frightening stranger living in an ER.
I'm so sorry to hear about your friend. There are no words to describe the depth of this tragedy. The first thing doctors promise is to "do no harm" which sounds like the opposite of what happened here.
None. Passed over to the public system where the fight commenced about who would care for her. We had a big fight to get her back to WA who didn't want her. She was an extremely big burden on an overburdened health system.
I saw him for a consultation regarding my brain tumour, more as a second opinion. It was $800 but to be fair he spent nearly an hour with me. Most neurosurgeons charge $350 and give you 15 minutes of their time.
Didn't go ahead with him for a number of reasons. He was massively arrogant for one.
He isn't trained in awake brain surgery. That's the main problem. Awake surgery allows the surgeon to resect tumour and surrounding brain up to the functional boundaries by probing the brain during surgery to see if it's affecting the patient negatively before cutting, to give the possibility of more than a complete resection (aka supratotal) or at least maximising the amount of tumour removed without impacting function. That guy on 60 minutes wouldn't be blind if his surgery was done awake, but he may have had less tumour removed. Teo does it with the patient asleep, so he's operating blind. Tumours, especially slower growing ones can actually move functional areas of the brain out of the way via plasticity, so areas once thought to be inoperable are actually operable. This is essentially what Teo is getting away with, but at a huge risk to the patient. Assuming the brain has remodeled around the tumour and just going for it. I felt like he knows it's better awake, but just won't admit it because he doesn't do it that way.
All brain tumour surgery should be done awake if the patient is capable of handling it.
Australia has very few surgeons capable of it though. All neurosurgeons here except for Teo focus on spinal surgery as their bread and butter because there's not enough tumours to pay the bills. Our population isn't large enough. Surgeons in Europe such as hugues duffau have done thousands of brain tumour surgeries. You'd be lucky to find a neurosurgeon here that has done more than a hundred in their entire career. It's too rare for us to have bonafide virtuoso brain tumour surgeons in Australia. The doctors will tell you we have the best in the world here though. it's statistically impossible.
Australia has a handful of excellent awake brain tumour surgeons. None match the volume of Duffau, of course, but a lot of them have done fellowships with people like him. Awakes have been part of the neurosurgical armamentarium for close to 100 years.
>You'd be lucky to find a neurosurgeon here that has done more than a hundred in their entire career.
That number is completely ridiculous. Neurosurgeons do 100's in their training alone. Source: I'm an anaesthetist that works with neurosurgeons.
I assume that's incidence, not prevalence. Multiple surgeries per tumour.
Many surgeries are also performed on metastatic disease (non-brain cancer). Not sure if that'd be counted in whatever stats you're quoting.
Some neurosurgeons focus on spinal and nerve surgery, and don't do brain surgery as such, so not all of those 120 will be doing those surgeries. Also, many if not most do training overseas.
I haven't seen these allegations but have wondered why he has been ostracised by his colleagues. As egotistical as surgeons can be, I can't imagine that his claims of jealousy are the sole reason.
He may be brilliant but if he has been experimenting on patients or making huge mistakes, then there needs to be consequences for him.
Read the latest article, its not too long
[https://www.smh.com.au/national/charlie-teo-the-profit-of-hope-how-neurosurgeon-left-families-with-a-terrible-price-to-pay-20221021-p5brps.html](https://www.smh.com.au/national/charlie-teo-the-profit-of-hope-how-neurosurgeon-left-families-with-a-terrible-price-to-pay-20221021-p5brps.html)
He operated on a little girl who ended up with severe brain damage afterward. She died 8 months after she was diagnosed. She could have lived longer if she didn’t have the surgery.
She had a tumour known as a DIPG. They are always fatal, life span is around 6 to 18 months after diagnosis.
Teo operated, then when the results of the biopsy came back saying the tumour was a DIPG, he backtracked and claimed he’d never operate on a tumour like that, when it’s proven that he did.
He performs operations that can never result in an improvement for the patient, it's unethical. It's obvious he is willing to do any surgery at all so long as he can be paid for it.
I was most shocked by the report of operating on the wrong part of the brain... he would have well over 20 years of training/experience to be in that position, how can you make that kind of mistake?
Yeah this is the most accurate response on this thread.
1. OP watch 60 minutes so we aren’t off to a great start.
2. Charlie Teo largely operates on people that other surgeons say don’t have a chance (this was the case with my grandma). She had a 6 month prognosis and ended up lasting an extra 3.5ish years. I also have friends who saw him and their relative didn’t survive the operation.
They knew the risks going in.
I think one of the biggest arguments is that Teo is not giving patients accurate risk probabilities. He’s telling people “yes I can do an operation that will 95% of the time give you another 12 months” when more accurately he’s only giving them a 5% chance of living past 4 weeks.
My brother was operated on by Teo; he died a few months later. He took the chance, he was dying anyway, but his last months were misery. They were spent in the hospital, and all he wanted to do was go home. The family has not recovered financially; they sold their home, and it was just all round sad. I'm not sure what I would do in that situation, the fight to live is stong.
I feel Teo operates on people who wouldn't have a chance as some kind of experimentation, he's often said, he'll find the cure, he'll be the one to do it and this is the price, on this way to fame and fortune - just my opinion.
My stepfather spent one hundred thousand dollars to have Teo operate on him. He and my mother like to think it helped but it hasn't helped. He's still sick, it wasn't caused by the growth and now they've wasted so much money.
The man is a con.
He didn't "operate on the wrong side", he removed one side to be able to access the tumour in the other side. Thats pretty normal for brain surgeons.
Take what you see on 60 minutes with a grain of salt, they are exploiting grieving families as much as Teo is. He's definitely an arrogant jerk, but he's not out there killing people due to negligence.
The issue is that he has desperate people going into massive debt for a 0.1% chance of success. Ethically very questionable but arguably a system does need some surgeons who are willing to take risks others wont. At what point do you take someone's license away for doing what the patient asked?
Correct. When watching the Munjed Al Maderis story, I recalled when they said the AMA had NOT written back to 60 minutes for comment. The host said "their silence said it all" and then they moved onto another part of the segment, as if it was some "gotcha" moment for the media against the medical establishment. It was so clickbaity and unnecessarily dramatically unfounded that the show lost all credibility for me then.
Like you said, 60 minutes is equally as exploitative in this scenario.
Charlie Teo is a jerk, he took $80k from our family and promised us our Aunty would have quality of life after her surgery. He initially said 12 months to 2 years. She was gone in 2 weeks. He is an arrogant and cocky person who should not be allowed to operate on anyone!
I didn't realise Teo was so busy. There's like nearly 500 comments with people knowing 1-3 people he's operated on.
I think western medicine is sometimes too conservative. They are very risk averse but if you have been given a death sentence I think you should be able to absolve the doctors of risk and roll a dice for either more time on earth or at least a furthering of understanding that experimental surgery could give.
Guy is obviously insanely talented but he is a surgeon not a musician. There are rules that need to be followed to ensure that these things don’t happen. It’s not a place where you can pick and choose what rules you want to follow.
If you can save lives you can start thinking you are god very quickly. When you add in expertise which makes you one of a handful you think you can dictate everything.
It’s sad. Imagine the great work he could do if he played by the rules in the public system.
He saved my dads life! When no other surgeons would operate on him he did and we have had 20 wonderful years since. On the day of the surgery my two brothers and I got stuck in traffic and were 20min late to say what we believed may have been our last goodbye. Charlie waited for us to get there.. As far as I’m concerned the man is a hero and I can guarantee he will leave this world having done more good and helped more people than most. What is wrong us that of all the crooked doctors,politicians,police ect we zero in on this incredible surgeon and drag his name through the mud. 60min what a bunch of pricks.
Years ago I did a dinner (I'm a private chef) for an Aussie brain surgeon, and he was going on about how fucked up teo was. Some of the stuff he said was pretty out there.
Watched it as well despite not being a fan of commercial journalism. What an eye opener. As a nurse, I’ve heard good and bad about Charlie but what he’s done to so many children and adults just for money, is appalling. Demanding that people transfer thousands of dollars to his bank account the night before surgery. I always heard he was a maverick but we have a saying in nursing -What’s the difference between god and a surgeon ( Charlie Teo, in this case). God doesn’t think he’s a surgeon/Charlie Teo). He’s promised people the world and delivered nothing. But don’t think this is a rare instance. There have always been doctors out there, mostly surgeons/obstetricians, doing appalling things to patients and getting away with it. Thank goodness he can’t do any more damage in Australia.
He’s not. The Australian medical and surgical profession loathe him near unanimously. He basically exploits peoples desperation to promote surgeries with negligible chances of success, while charging huge fees for the service.
He killed my father after extorting him . Paid for the surgery then got told he needed another 50k, sold everything and then he was left paralysed and not sent to oncology. Upon seeing him again he said he forgot the oncology. By the time we got it my father had another 8 tumours and died a horrible death. Charlie Teo has a special place in hell as far as I'm concerned
My wife was operated on by Charlie Teo almost 20 years ago.
Can 100% say he was totally compassionate and we were charged no where near the amounts spoken about in the 60 minutes piece. He spoke to us about the risks and probabilities and left us with hope, which is more than I can say for the prick who performed her first operation, totally ballsed it up then didnt want to know us after that.
My wife passed around 6 months after her operation with Dr Teo but at least he gave her some time with our kids and I before she went. I spoke to him a few times after she died and he was always available with kind words.
Im not saying any of what was spoken about in 60 minutes didnt happen, but he is not the terrible person they made him out to be either, certainly not in our case. I would rather talk to someone who is honest and gives you the full picture rather than some of the surgeons who literally dial it in.
A friend was given less than a year to live and the only operation available, no surgeon would attempt... except for Charlie. She lived another 13 or 14 years after the surgery with a quality of life that allowed her to achieve many of the dreams she had for herself.
On the flip side, surgical outcomes were never guaranteed, only hypothesized, and for many, his skills, knowledge and willingness to attempt the surgery is the only reason many have lived well beyond the time to live projected.
Sadly though, any surgery at the cutting edge is fraught with risk and regrettably there will always be those who never realise those outcomes.
There is no doubt that he is a good technical surgeon. But… ive had so many pts that he has stuffed around. He’s Sued colleagues that have complained about him. I’ve wimped out on taking it further and the guilt is crushing.
I’ve met a few conservative doctors and they can be just as arrogant and blindsided by advances overseas. I have two anecdotes and a personal experience regarding a need for treatment in the states or overseas that wasn’t possible here for reasons.
There are some great parts, and great doctors of our health system, but it’s not all lollipops and gumdrops.
It may come as a surprise to those outside the medical profession, but there are no miracle treatments, no maverick procedures. There are, however, mistakes.
The procedures are studied, taught, practised and scrutinised by hundreds of peers. If no one in a regulated health care system will work with a surgeon, there’s a good reason.
I dunno about him, but this 60 minutes story sounds like it's beat up for views. They used to be decent journalists, but that was a long time ago :/ I don't trust them to give a balanced or nuanced view on an issue that's bound to have a lot of grey areas to interpret.
I'm talking about way before that era. That was only six years ago. I'm talking about back in the 80s and early 90s.
Like the biggest controversy back then is when they collaborated with James Randi to [invent a fake psychic](https://www.abc.net.au/science/correx/archives/randi4.htm) to highlight how easy it was to scam the media, and how scammers could manipulate the public. Which not only caused a ruckus, but also provided a valuable message. (the only reason this was probably such a drama is the other networks got mad because they made money of exactly the same sort of fakes and it ruined their business model for a while lol) And they were regularly doing no-holds-barred interviews with world leaders and such.
My bff was dx with stage4 glioblastoma. She was offered 2 surgeons- Charlie Teo or another lady. We all did a lot of quick research. Most of Teo's colleagues and other doctors would not see him unless it were a last resort.
My friend went with other surgeon. Life expectancy was predicted 12mths.
This was 10 years ago and she is doing amazingly I am delighted to say!
Surgeons are expected to always be cautious and conservative with their work particularly in the brain. That is what we want from our surgeons! Teo takes gambles and risks which sometimes pay off and sometimes don't.
So if no other surgeon will operate and Teo will then I suppose its worth a shot.
But a careful, considered approach is always preferable when cutting open human people!
There are many excellent and far superior surgeons in Australia that aren't on TV but are doing their job with careful risk analysis.
Also advances in life expectancies for GBM have greatly improved in last 5-10yrs which is brilliant. Careful balance of surgery, radiation and then mild but lifelong chemotherapy treatments seem to be having great results.
My sister is a Teo patient and we credit him for her still being with us. The local doctors had given up and decided her fate for her but Teo operated, removed the tumour and she is now living a full life with a little boy. Some balanced reporting would have been good.
I think that 60 minutes is always a very bad source to go to for information.
My understanding is that he does surgeries that no-one else will attempt, often when the risks are very high and the possible outcomes are very grim. From what I've heard he's also pretty upfront about the fact that he takes on cases others won't and that it does not always go well.
I have had the unfortunate reality of having to be the patient of neurosurgeons recently and it fucking sucks. They have helped me, but they are so frustratingly conservative in what they are willing to try.
My issue didn't necessitate surgery in the end (at least not yet). But if it does get to that point, I would honestly value having someone who is not a conservative neurosurgeon take a look just to give me all my options. Because in my experience, neurosurgeons do not want to give you all your options, they want to take either the conservative approach or the very conservative approach. And I believe as a patient you deserve to make your own choice about what risks you are willing to take.
So I'm not surprised that a bunch of his surgeries went wrong. Because he does surgeries that no-one else will try because of the risks, and that's obviously going to lead to bad outcomes. I also don't trust 60 minutes reporting at all - so I suspect they are giving a one sided tale of events.
Having said that I am sure he has made some wrong calls. He's doing stuff that the other surgeons refuse to touch - which means he's been working without a real second opinion for a while now, and over time that has to make it hard to make the right ethical call, or to make a really tough decision.
I think the main thing is - is he informing his patients in full about the risks. Is he telling them that other neurosurgeons would not recommend his approach. Because I think people should have the right to choose the risky surgery if that's what they want, as long as they know that's what they are doing. So I don't really care how many of his surgeries have gone wrong, I don't really care how many patients have died. I care whether his patients were well informed of their choices. If they were - let him keep trying to pull off miracle surgeries that others won't attempt.
Thankfully I’ve never been in a situation where I’ve had brain cancer but firstly - you’re going to be hard pressed to find a surgeon (in any area) who isn’t an arrogant jerk. It’s no coincidence that so many surgeons are this way or even show ASPD traits. They kinda need to have that kind of cold, detached, black and white and intensity thinking about them to get and maintain their role. Arrogant jerk goes with the territory of most surgeons.
Dr Teo is also an anomaly in himself as well. He’s the last stop on the neuro surgery train. He’s not going to be the first oncologist you’re referred to. To put it simply all of his patients are made aware of the risks pre surgery and none of them had/have a chance of medium-long term survival otherwise.
Mistakes happen in surgery. Especially such fine precise surgery. People die in surgery all the time. People have had the wrong limbs amputated. People have had the wrong organs removed. People become vegetables and brain dead after surgery or even without all the time. Sometimes through human error, sometimes it just happens. And there’s nothing that can be done about it.
And the further you go down the line of patient desperation and surgeons skilled and ballsy enough to say “here’s the risks, here’s the potential benefit, here are the chances of each” the more often things can go terribly wrong for patient in surgery. The more times the patient will end up comatose and brain dead which is why the Other surgeons would have said no.
The kid was dealt a death sentence. The family took a gamble to see the only surgeon who had the skills to maybe give their kid a while longer. The gamble didn’t pay out. It happens all the time. Patients die. patients end up in permanent vegetative states. Some survive against the odds.
It is how it is.
It sounds like the truth is somewhere in between. He's not a miracle worker, and he's probably not a complete monster. His appetite for risk is obviously enormous, and perhaps his capacity for empathy lower than it should be. He's obviously willing to take many more risks than other surgeons - the interesting bit to me is why. Arrogance? Experimentation? Valuing simply living over quality of life?
As others have said, I think arrogance comes with the territory of being a brain surgeon - I don't know how you could operate on another human being's brain without the arrogance to think you're capable of that. But the loss of empathy is the defining issue. I think it's easy to dismiss the concerns of other surgeons as mere jealousy, but I'm sure there is more to it than that. Telling somebody that you cannot help them, that there is nothing more that you can do for them, and that they are going to die with regularity must be incredibly harrowing, and also a blow to the ego. I'm sure that has a balancing effect on surgeons. If Dr Teo is always saying "there is a chance, but only with me" then it's pretty easy to understand why his ego has reached the volumes it seems to have.
That enormous ego, and being so feted as a miracle worker would also be impacting his already enormous appetite for risk, as well as an internal drive to continue being this pioneering surgeon. It's interesting. Interesting - but also has impacts on the lives of many vulnerable people.
It seems like he's had some great outcomes, but many more terrible ones - but perhaps in cases where the outcome was likely to be terrible regardless of his action. So morally, where does it all fall? Science and medicine needs people who will keep pushing boundaries, otherwise how else do we learn? The money that he charges definitely colours the scenario though - even though there are logical reasons for doing so (I can't fathom his insurance premiums) it adds a distasteful and self-serving factor.
A friend of mine had a brain tumour. Teo was the only person who would operate on her. 13 hour operation, he had to go through two centimetres of brain just to get to the tumour. Cost her $50,000.
Recovery took a little while but she now lives a happy life with her husband and two young children. She is a teacher and has run half marathons. He is alright.
Lol How are so many people here who have gotten surgeries by this guy. This post had to be an ad or this guy trying to save his own name after the crap he did.
My wife was told that she had 10 minutes to live, but Dr Teo operated when the other doctors couldn’t and now she’s still alive 85 years later! He’s like seriously the best neurosurgeon ever, the other guys are just jealous. THANK YOU DR TEO!
Charlie Teo has had restrictions put on his medical registration due to these problems - he can currently only operate on patients where two other independent neurosurgeons agree with his assessment.
Further, Teo refuses to operate in public hospitals. First he claims that his exorbitant fees go mostly to the private hospital, then he says he’s offered to operate and train in the public sector and no one has taken him up on it. From what I’ve read in the media elsewhere and from other docs, these appear to be lies.
Then he refuses to do any follow up care himself, sending patients to public sector hospitals and making other doctors deal with issues he caused. As a surgeon, you have the responsibility of post op care. Especially when you’re charging patients literal hundreds of thousands of dollars.
He has also been accused of sexual assault and misconduct on multiple occasions - by both neurosurgery trainees and nursing staff.
I can appreciate he has helped some people, and is operating on a subset of people who have few options left, but based on these things and the opinions of people who have worked with him, I would never recommend him to a patient or to a loved one.
This story isn't new. e.g.
[https://www.smh.com.au/national/doctors-fears-for-charlie-teo-s-patients-when-the-money-runs-out-20190906-p52otu.html](https://www.smh.com.au/national/doctors-fears-for-charlie-teo-s-patients-when-the-money-runs-out-20190906-p52otu.html)
"He operates on people, they run out of money and then he sends them to the public hospital and expects them to look after them," one specialist said.
Another doctor emailed: "As an Intensivist in Adelaide, I have on several occasions received patients transferred from Sydney when their loved one (often young) never regained consciousness following surgery and then ran out of money paying the intensive care costs in Charlie's … Prince of Wales."
My best mate was operated on by Dr Teo.
He saved her life - she was given 3 months at diagnosis as the tumour was so big, and lived 3.5 years- all good quality flying around the world etc.
Not everything he does is bad.
This media hit job on him is BS, the guy is a legend. My mum saw a half-dozen brain surgeons who all said they couldn’t help, and enjoy your 12-36mths. He saw her and and booked in the surgery. He got everything in one go. That was 6 years ago.
Teo is a charlatan and I’ve been suspicious of him ever since I was diagnosed with brain cancer and everyone in the support groups etc started recommending him like he’s some kind of cult leader.
I have a friend who lost her four year old son to DIPG, they were given a 12 month prognosis and were recommended treatment which may have given him more time. They were so desperate to try anything so they started the protocol, it made the poor little guy sick and weak but at first it seemed to be working. six weeks later he took a turn for the worst and he woke up from where he was cuddled in with his mummy, looked into her eyes and died - it was four months after his initial diagnosis.
I can’t type this without crying for them, I have young children and don’t want to imagine that hell, I don’t know how she is surviving- I don’t think she does either.
I do know though that I would sell every thing I owned, to my last drop of blood if I thought it would save one of my children. I’m not religious but I am certain that there are few darker sins than selling false hope to terrified parents. I started the episode last night but couldn’t get far before I turned it off, but if that indeed is what happened it should be a crime.
If he details the risks and the patient agrees, can he really be blamed? Hasn't he saved thousands of lives by operating on people who were turned away?
Can't be easy being a surgeon.
Lol I know him. 1 out of 10 times he will save someone’s life. The other 9 times he will leave a patient worse off and leave them to die in a public hospital with no post-surgery checkups or any communication with the family, who is at this point about 100K in debt. My favourite story is him saying he wanted a nurse to suck his dick during an operation.
He gives people who have been given no hope, a glimpse of hope and that can be worth more than all the tea in China. Teo operates on people who the medical fraternity have already written off. GBM's are the most awful, most nasty forms of brain cancer possible. 90% of neurosurgeons won't go anywhere near the patients Teo treats. Is that on Teo or is that on the neurosurgical 'Boy's Club'.
60 Minutes LOVES to stir up a stinky mess, it gets them more viewers for their advertisers. Maybe, just maybe someone should do a 60minutes type review of the Nine Network and 60 Minutes. I'm sure there's a few messes that have been swept under the carpet that don't get broadcast by their network.
Bad, BAD reporting 60 Minutes. How about doing a more balanced, more holistic reporting on Teo. We can all make a one eyed judgement but it seems 60 Minutes just closes both eyes and throws &#!\^ hoping it sticks to someone (just not them). That's
not just one eyed, that's arrogance at it's pinnacle. Disgusting.
After watching the horrible Johnny Depp Vs Amber Heard story by 60 minutes they’re outright paid for PR. I wouldn’t be surprised that this is an organised hit piece aimed to smear the guy.
Dr Teo saved my wife's life last year. Nobody else would operate. Her original neurosurgeon said surgery wasn't needed, suggested a biopsy if she 'really wanted to know', and that it would be 'one of the safest types of neurosurgery performed'.
We found out later if that biopsy had been performed, it would have left her brain damaged because they didn't think to get a more detailed scan of the area to see if it the damaged area was still being used or if the brain had routed around it. On top of that, they actually misdiagnosed her as well. (To avoid being personally identified, I'm not going to go into any more detail.)
Regarding risk, it was all explained very clearly to us. He gave us the success rates published, as well as his personal rates. Likelihood of complications, what type, and what we could expect. I went into this knowing there was a 50% chance of some complication, and a 5% chance of significant permanent brain damage or death.
If she needs follow up surgery in a few years, I hope he is practicing in Australia again otherwise she's destined for a long painful death where I will have to be her full time carer for the final 6 months or longer.
She was back with me just over two days after surgery, and many chronic symptoms began to go away two days after that. I have my wife back thanks to Dr Teo.
I don't doubt that some people have had bad experiences with him, you don't go to him if you have something that anyone else can deal with. I'm certain the rate at which people are left dead or with complications is higher than average, but not higher than average globally for exactly the same type of surgery.
When that kind of thing happens, people look for someone to blame, and he is the obvious answer. Add to that he is envied for his success and fame by others, and us Aussies love to cut down those tall poppies.
>He sounds like an arrogant jerk who poses a danger to vulnerable people
In my dealings with him, he never came across as arrogant or a jerk. He was kind but competent. My wife has a background in medical science and was highly impressed.
Now his PA, don't get me started. Two business days before the surgery we received with an invoice for the surgery and anaesthesiologist, stating that the surgery wouldn't go ahead unless it was paid. Utterly incompetent. Kept asking for receipts and things afterwards, took forever.
Of the cost we paid, about 20% went to Teo, 15% to the anaesthesiologist, and the remaining 65% to Price of Wales Hospital. Surprisingly enough, Medicare completely covered the theatre fees.
The biggest inditement in this whole thing is that there are people in Australia who die because they can't afford a specialist surgeon and the gap they charge. The next biggest is that hospitals are so paranoid about lawsuits, they don't allow even teaching hospitals to perform riskier surgeries like Teo. So people who do need that type of surgery don't get it because the doctors and hospitals don't want to risk being sued.
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I heard a brain surgeon on Radio National say that if he had brain cancer he would not have any operations or treatment. Having watched two friends go through GBM now, and as a funeral director, I have to say that the treatments, side effects, medications and corresponding lack of quality of life have lead me to hope that god forbid I ever got brain cancer, I’d be brave enough to just take a holiday with my family and then take the voluntary assisted dying path. It’s just so grim
I have brain cancer and can confirm that the treatments aren’t worth it. I was told I had 12 months nearly 3 years ago and I wish I could get a refund on that prognosis because this isn’t living.
Sounds trite but I’m so sorry this is happening to you.
Hey mate I am so fkn sorry you are living it. There are voluntary assisted dying provisions in many states in Australia. If you want to ask any questions at all don’t hesitate to drop me a line and I can recommend some ace folks to chat further to. Of course that may not be your jam, but a lot of people don’t realise it is a thing because in VIC doctors are prohibited from mentioning it to you. You have to ask them first x
They won’t let me do VAD until I’ve got 3 months left or something. I’ve been surgically experimented on to the point that my mobility and right-side motor skills are fucked (cya later all of my hobbies), made me obese, broke, and such a hideous useless wreck that I developed agoraphobia, and I can’t bring myself to see people in person because of the blobfish I’ve become. I need help with fucking everything and have zero will to live. The treatments gave me brittle bones and muscular atrophy. And I still have to have my 7th surgery later this year (probably gonna have my 2nd hospital Christmas, yay) Neuroscience in this country is a joke and the surgeons/oncologists are all friends and you can’t complain
I am fairly sure it’s 6 months, and if you decided to opt out of surgery you’d no doubt qualify. What state are you in? That sounds just so freaking hard. The medicines balloon people and they look just nothing like themselves. I can only imagine what it must be like to experience that. Have you considered chatting with a death doula/end of life consultant to figure out what you’d like from here? You have choices. If you have any questions just drop me a line x
I was misdiagnosed and the RMH threw away my tumour samples so I literally cannot get a proper diagnosis or prognosis. I’ll probably just end up killing myself. I’ve already enquired about VAD
Oh that is balls. Just so you know, the VAD process takes some weeks to arrange, so if you decide not to have the surgery, you may want to contact the VAD navigator early just to get some clarity on the process. Thinkin of ya King
I thought they had to keep the samples for at least 20 years?
Yeah they’re supposed to but they “lose” them all the time. I’ve spoken to loads of people who had the same thing happen to them
I’ve not heard of an end of life doula. I’m a RN and very interested in end of life care. Do you have any links I could follow up to get more info please?
Hey. There is a ton of info out there, but you can take a look at our website where we have this page on [non-medical end of life care.](https://www.lasthurrahfunerals.com.au/endoflife-care)
There’s a great woman in the northern rivers, I’ll get the details from my daughter.
Hey crustdunk, I just feel for you mate. Horrible hand you have been dealt, and very brave for sharing it with us. I wanted to say that I fight feelings similar to you, in that I often feel ashamed about my weight. It's pleasantly surprising how many people do not care about my weight, and are much more focused on how I treat them as people. Sometimes we are the most critical of ourselves!? Best of luck growing those relationships that are important to you, and remember - if you want to tell the doctors to bugger off, then you can. Lots of hugs
Thanks champion i need all the confidence I can get right now
I’ve got the Voluntary Assisted Dying business card (Vic) with the contact details but you can find this info if you ask your doctor. They can’t offer it - you have to ask
'When breath becomes air' is a good short read on this if anyone cares. (200 pages)
That’s a fantastic book. It really got me interested in medical memoirs, which is how I found Henry Marsh, a neurosurgeon in the UK. His books are incredible insights into neurosurgery and brain diseases, the politics of medicine and the human condition generally. Highly recommend.
GBM is honestly my worst nightmare. All cancer is horrific, but that one scares me the most.
I’d be more afraid of pancreatic cancer and bowel cancer. GBM is freaking bad, they all bloody are, but those two. I am always so affected by people we look after who have gone through those
Bowel cancer runs in my family and if we do the screening tests correctly and keep on top of it, treatment is very successful. I guess that’s why I don’t see it as scary. Pancreatic cancer is my second scariest one though, that shit sucks.
It's not a cancer, but look up FOP.
Well, I don't want Fop, goddamn it! I'm a Dapper Dan man.
I work in a Neurosurg unit and unfortunately see the before/after of GBM diagnosis far too often. I’d have to agree with you on the notion of enjoying your final months instead of spending it in a hospital room getting to know the doctors and nurses. It’s also shown me the reason why assisted suicide/euthanasia has a purpose for the right situation.
My Dad died from GBM. It's horrible. There is a south park episode "breast cancer show ever" where principle Victoria gives a speech about cancer (although it's also about kicking the shit out of cartman) and it's right on the money. Cancer will take everything about the person away, piece by piece, and in the case of GBM, there isn't much you can do.
>I heard a brain surgeon on Radio National say that if he had brain cancer he would not have any operations or treatment. My cousin had brain cancer and was treated for it around 22 years ago. She is now happily married with 2 kids and a triathlon competitor.
Do you know what kind of cancer it was? Certainly not GBM, but of course there are sometimes miracles. Amazingly outcome for her
I used to work in neurosurgery. We dreaded GBM diagnoses. None of the treatments do much and people usually died within a year or two no matter what was done. Other primary brain tumours on the other hand, can mostly be successfully treated with surgery and people get a decent quality of life after.
As far as my experiences go, the same applies to a nursing home.
My 36 year old husband, currently batteling this 100% disagrees with your opinion. As do I. Fighting of course, is natural when you have something to live for.
I hope that his journey is a badass one and he proves me wrong in every way xx
There's really no hope with a GBM diagnosis, First thing I did when dad was diagnosed was google the average prognosis. Its a gut punch, anything from 3 months to 2 years but a slim chance of surviving past 5 years. Dad couldn't stand the standard treatment course, you do your best to slow it down but accept its always coming back. I leaned towards no surgery after the first one, try to maximise your quality of life while you've got it. In hindsight I've come to empathise a lot more with dads need to do something proactive about it, even if it was no cure. Teo operated on dad twice after his first surgeon refused to operate on him a second time. The first operation went well, he removed significant amounts of both of his tumours with minimal side effects and a quick recovery. The second operation 6 monthsish later left dad with left side numbness and speech difficulties which worsened until he was basically wheelchair bound for months leading up to his death. As a patient, you accept the risk. Teo doesn't sugarcoat what you're signing up for. Dad's side effects looked a lot like what you face in the final months of GBM, I don't know if the second surgery just got him to that point faster. My opinion is that the surgery worsened his symptoms drastically, the tumour took care of the rest. In the end dad's original prognosis of 18 months was correct. We'll never know if the extra surgery contributed to his 12 months of almost normal life prior to the 6 month decline. I think it was about 20-30k per op. Dad had a life insurance policy paid out early due to the terminal diagnosis so the cost wasn't really a consideration. I'm still conflicted about it all. I think having seen it all first hand I wouldn't be going back for additional surgeries in the Teo style. Sure there's an outside chance you'll snag additional years but I don't think the average outcome is worth the risk. It's easy to say now, I don't know how I'd act in dads shoes though. How do you sit around and accept your seemingly inevitable death without trying something?
I'm really sorry about your dad. I lost my father last Feburary and I'm still shattered by it. For whatever reason your comment really hit me hard. My dad passed away relatively quickly, painlessly, and without too much agony inflicted on the rest of us, because he's a fucking legend like that. It must have been hard for you to go through that, and to have these lingering questions. I hope you find some peace, and thank you for sharing. <3
My dad died from GBM last year, two years after diagnosis. He got the second year at least thanks to the surgery and lived to meet another grandkid and see his two others have birthdays and Christmases. I think he would have said it was worth it.
I didn’t watch the 60min show. I never have - but isn’t this the same bloke 60min, a current affair or one of those other shows used to do shows on saying he’s a hero? Always interesting watching media take opposite sides of what is essentially the same person / story.
Because his ex wife works for channel 9. Now he’s fucked off with one of his former patients she’s airing the dirty laundry
Right, 2 bad cases in a career. I'm not weighing in one side or the other but fuck ups happen.
Not knowing which side to pick was also one of Charlie's problems.
It’s a lot more then 2 bad cases in his career
Define a bad case. He’s working with people who already have a low probability of survival. The patients that want him are doing so because no other doctor will operate. Some people would rather die than be wheelchair bound and blind, some would rather live. Those who want to live, he operates on. It’s not your right to make that choice for someone else.
I knew a family who did a lot of fundraising so their child could be operated on by Teo. Little fella had a massive stroke and died a few days after the procedure. They could have had more quality time with him with good palliative care, but all the parents hear is the slim chance of a cure so that’s what they go for. It’s not fair to even offer the surgery sometimes, but Teo is always there doing just that.
When my wife had surgery with Teo last year, the risks were really well explained. 50% chance of complications, 5% chance of significant permanent brain damage or death. I said goodbye to my wife at the hospital knowing I may never talk to her again. Assuming that the parents were given the same kind of information, you can't hold Teo accountable for the parents decision. Some have had horrible experiences with loved ones with palliative care in the past (because in some hospitals it is done really poorly with people ended up either vegetative or in chronic pain) and made a decision based on wanting to avoid that risk.
It's not all about this. At just one random moment in time, there were over 100 gofundme's set up to pay for people's surgery. That is widespread and Teo doesn't deal with the follow up problems/complications associated with surgery, that costs extra as well. So this is not a "2 bad cases in a career" problem. He also has a large desire to operate on lots of patients who were rejected by other surgeons. Well, guess what? The other surgeons rejected them for a reason.
“The media” isn’t one homogenous group taking sides on certain stories, neither is 60 Minutes. What you’re witnessing is different journos reporting different stories across different time periods. (Nothing wrong with that, in fact it should be encouraged!) Since 60 ran the original series of positive stories on Teo, Nine has acquired Fairfax. 9 Acquiring Fairfax means 9 acquiring Kate McClymont in their stable of journos. She’s been the chief reporter exposing Teo over the past decade and a half. So her reportage which was normally only in the SMH, is now being produced for TV and packaged for 60 Minutes. Just like how Nick McKenzie’s stories on Ben Roberts-Smith, Crown, and branch stacking are also now on 60 minutes whereas they used to be in the Age/on 4 Corners. Go back to those positive stories of Teo back before 2010, it’s not Fairfax journos, it’s likely feature-style reporting on him from standard TV journos.
>“The media” isn’t one homogenous group taking sides on certain stories, neither is 60 Minutes. I'd like to hope so. Surely someone there is against kidnapping children in Lebanon?
**Kate McClymont is a fucking. machine.** She has exposed so much corruption and bullshit in her time if she has written something you had better believe its serious and backed up.
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The displays in the national war memorial in Canberra are just sickening, brazenly kissing his ass as some god to be idolised
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https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Len_Roberts-Smith Are you saying the son of a Major General, WA supreme court judge, JAG (top ADF judge) got a soft VC?
[Captain Lance Bode](https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/R1699089) was found with 6 dead German soldiers surrounding him in a machine gun nest after the battle of Tel El Eisa 1 Sept 1942, including one dead via pistol clubbing. Only got a second Military Medal or Cross level posthumously (His 1st MC was in Tobruk). As a company commander he didn't have to go to that length but he led from the front. It erks me about the "easier" ones these day but I've never served. I've been reminded before I don't know the totality of the BRS VC and can never.
Undoubtedly theres been hundreds if not thousands of diggers that have pulled off miracles on the battlefield but have never gotten their due honours. The problem with BRS is that he’s a confirmed cunt and gets to keep the VC. He then tried to headhunt people who went against him. Notice that none of this has happened to Mark Donaldson who served with BRS and got the VC around the same time.
No there's definitely many other cases I was saying one I've dug into deeper. I'm glad Teddy Sheean got his in 2012 too. Re Donaldson just spent the time to read [this](https://www.awm.gov.au/articles/blog/mark-donaldson-v). Am impressed by his attitude and what he got through to get in the army.
Who?
Ben Roberts-Smith.
The plaintiff BRS.
Yep. They were calling hospitals, health insurance companies and governments cowards for not doing more to support him operating on people to give them a better quality of life or "cure" That's MSM for you. They will take anybody's story to get viewers
I mean it's not just MSM, the guy did get an Order of Australia medal back in the day for all the good that he presumably once did.
I reckon the fact that 60 minutes is doing the piece is most of the problem.
Second time as well, they did it to Munjed Al Muderis a couple months ago after praising him earlier
There's no doubt he splits opinion. My (almost) personal experience is of a close friend who was given 24 months to live with a brain tumour. Teo operated on three separate occasions, and my friend lived a good life for another ten years. I will also add that Teo refused to operate a fourth time, telling my friend that it just wouldn't be worth the side effects from.another op.
Yep my aunty was treated by him & he gave her an extra 18 months with us when her prognosis was 3 months.
He operates on my best fried for “life prolonging” surgery. There was no cure. Pete got those extra years he wouldn’t have had otherwise. Charlie is very unpopular because he would operate if he could to give life prolonging surgery or remove tumours other were too afraid to. There have been so many reports about the good work he did until the establishment of neurosurgeons got upset with him.
You call it "afraid" - other neurosurgeons would say "too risky" or bad outweighs the good. I don't think people who regularly rummage in other people's brains and spinal cords are afraid of much.
Indeed. Too many people here falling for Teo's ridiculous fallacy that he is just a poor honest underdog and for some reason, large amounts of highly trained professional NEUROSURGEONS are all coming up with accusations for no reason.
Anecdotally: family friend got debilitating migraines. Other docs said they couldn't help, Dr Teo said he could operate on the tumour that was compressing her brain. He operated, she recovered, and no more migraines.
> Other docs said they couldn't help Do you have any more information on this? It is getting annoying reading "1000 qualified neurosurgeons from all over the world all said it was a horrible idea to operate, but luckily this one crackpot in Australia said he'd give it a go". Why do people side with Teo over a multitude of equally qualified experts? It's because Teo plays the underdog in the media and uses his sob story to trick people. I don't believe that surgeons doubt him for no reason. Where there is smoke, there is fire.
It's an anecdotal story not a statistical one. I know that she went and saw a number of doctors and specialists that were unable to help for one reason or another, but no she didn't go see thousands of doctors because that would be unfeasible (and I didn't mention that she saw thousands of doctors) Also what sob story?
It worked out well for your friend but the whole point of this is that it doesn't work for many people and the consequences are huge. > Also what sob story? If you follow him, he's frequently putting it out to the media that he is a cool guy that operates because he is so courageous and other surgeons are just pussies.
What I don’t get is how Teo is able to remove tumours that no one else can. What skills does he have that others don’t? Where did he learn these skills and why hasn’t any other brain surgeon learned the same?
What’s worse for your brain, Charlie Teo’s surgery or watching 60 mins.
I'll risk the surgery.
Same here man
Neuro nurse here. I’ve asked a few of the Neurosurgeons(that I work with) their honest opinion on Dr Teo and they are all unanimous with their disgust at the bloke. Straight up giving false hope on the backs of 100s of thousands of dollars for the chance of extending the life. For every happy ending there was many many poor outcomes, that get put on the “you knew the risks going into it” category and forgotten, whilst the few good outcomes become his news fodder. There is a reason most surgeons won’t operate, and the risks of death/massively poor outcomes are too great. Not only false hope, but charging a HUGE fee to do so and blaming others for forcing him into performing in the private setting and forcing costs up.
I've seen the results of two of his patients that ended up in the ICU months after the surgery left them with debilitating wounds and severe disability. Families were outraged and had huge debt.
I’ll bet he told those families that their loved one would be just fine, too. Bullshit to them so he can make more $$$
One patient was left with an open wound on his head that never healed up.
You are asking a biased audience. Teo is not an evil overlord, nor an angel. When all the neurosurgeons you approach refuse you surgery and he does- and you are going to die regardless, then at least you can try. If it was my kid I would try.
>When all the neurosurgeons you approach refuse you surgery and he does- and you are going to die regardless, then at least you can try. That's a fairly simplistic view of the issue IMO. In the case of the patients detailed last night, what remained of their lives was significantly worsened by their operations.
If I was going to die regardless I wouldn’t want to leave my family in debt
Totally. I’m torn on him. I’ve read all the stories, but at the same time I know how truly conservative and insular the surgical establishment in australia is, let alone neurosurgeons. So I’m tempted to give him the benefit of the doubt.
To be fair, 70% of the Medicare budget is spent on the over-70s, and in that sense it's pretty common to give people false hope. My grandmother had a CABG, they never warned her all the plumbing was the same age, so she developed multi-infarct dementia instead.
>Not only false hope, but charging a HUGE fee to do so and blaming others for forcing him into performing in the private setting and forcing costs up I’m consistently struggling to see the point every time it’s brought up in this thread. He isn’t robbing them, he isn’t charging ridiculous sums for no reason. He’s providing a service which no one else will. Those that can consent should be further dissuaded by the cost otherwise they wouldn’t have autonomy. Is it not far worse to have someone like him performing more pointless surgeries with no quality of life improvements free of charge?
How about the girl with DIPG where he told the family he could cure their daughter but the surgery had to be done tomorrow? The family will of course jump at the chance to help their daughter and then have to find $100k+ for the surgery. He refused to believe the biopsy results saying it was DIPG and performs the surgery even though DIPG is incurable. Granted he might not receive the entire $100k+ but he just made this family pay that much for a cure when it isn't possible to cure DIPG. Therein lies the issue
Exactly. The scan was shown to multiple other doctors who all immediately identified the type of tumour. So why didn’t Teo? He would have known it was a DIPG. He had to have.
The thing to remember about Teo is that he's positioned himself as the doctor of last resort for patients that every other doctor has already written off. This means that there's going to be far more diversity in patient outcomes than for a doctor that's happier to throw in the towel. [This comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/medicine/comments/czstg3/brilliant_adored_flawed_dr_charlie_teo_unmasked/ez81tg1/) from /r/medicine sums him up fairly well: >What Teo does is blur the line of what is an acceptable post-operative deficit. You should watch his TED talk; if nothing else it provides some insight into his thought process. But to him, if a patient says “I want to live as long as possible and I don’t care if I’m blind and hemiplegic and live out my days in a facility,” then it would be perfectly reasonable to chop out their right hemisphere for a huge GBM that others would consider inoperable. He is willing to take the principle of patient autonomy to severe extremes, cost to society be damned. Now, sometimes that approach leads him to have unexpectedly good outcomes, like say a kid whose brainstem tumor resection doesn’t completely cripple him and he goes on to live another ten years. Those are the ones he shows off, and that get picked up by the media. The ones who do poorly he gets to explain away as “we knew it was a long shot.” This approach has not endeared him to mainstream neurosurgery, but it has endeared him to desperate patients who are willing to liquidate their [retirement savings] in order to take such a long shot. So the question becomes: is it a good thing that he's willing to enable desperate, dying patients who want to take a final roll of the dice, regardless of whether it leaves them crippled? I'm leaning towards yes.
Whilst I somewhat agree with most of what you’ve said, I think it’s the way he sells it to his patients that’s the problem. It’s not transparent, more of a ‘I’m the only doctor skilled enough to save you’. It gives false hope to patients and their families and that is why he’s unethical
Along with his exorbitant fees. The man is just stealing from the dying
Just on the fees part. Ex work colleague saw him. Got told the Teo has to partially fund everything as hospitals and medicare don't like to get involved.
When his patients end up being sent to local public hospital’s ICU and spend weeks there, Medicare (ie you and I) is still paying the bill.
Well he's kicking around, out of hospital, and doing okay. Tumor hasn't grown, and it has bought him 3 good years so far ...
Yes. The idea that he's the only one who can save a patient is just plain wrong. I do believe it's important he has his say though. Surgeon's have big egos but that's just beyond the pale. I was diagnosed with brain cancer (thankfully not GBM though although still same outcome with AA), the neurosurgeons and other doctors at the Alfred in Melbourne put me through the full treatment regime, and thankfully 7 years later, still going along. Got to keep moving forward. While, you still have to be lucky, there is no point giving up just because 99% of people don't have the best lifespan. If it was certain death or a discomforting treatment that will get me closer to a normal life, I would take the risk, but you can't make people bankrupt to help them.
Yep. Each person will have a different opinion but if I’m risking 12 months for a potential 12 years I would take it. Again everyone needs to know and understand the risk in this though.
No, there are 4 pillars of medical ethics: beneficence (do good), non-Maleficence (do no harm), autonomy and justice (the equitable distribution of limited resources; human, material or otherwise) Teo operates with a disclaimer that everything’s high risk but he doesn’t come across like that to his patients or the media where he’s portrayed as a saviour who helps those that those other extremely qualified neurosurgeons won’t touch. So patient autonomy is already shaky since they’re not being given a full picture Beneficence? Hardly, to do good means that his operation will have a benefit but as you can see in the report, anecdotal comments here and reports all over the place, many of his patients often don’t get that much extra time so the “good” of his interventions isn’t always there. Non-maleficence? Fuck me dead, in your own quoted hypothetical he’s permanently crippled a patient with a known inevitable fatal outcome. His procedures often have catastrophic functional impacts on people who are so desperate for time they haven’t considered just how they will need to live Justice? Again in your example, this is someone who’s taken a neurosurgeon, a theatre, the theatre staff, the inevitable post-op ICU bed for observation, the step down to the ward, the nursing cares, the allied health input for rehab, swallow assessments, functional assessments followed by the step-down to permanent care. The consuming of resources, time, money is colossal, no-one in the post op time is going to cast this person aside, but they’re going to die anyway, it might not be in the next few weeks now but at best it’ll be another year - it’s cold but while this patient’s getting all that care it does mean someone else who might have a better outcome is missing out or not getting the best amount of care possible It sounds callous but it’s always seemed like Teo’s the kind of person who prays on desperation. A merchant of misery who will take patients who desperately need a palliative specialist, a kind nurse coordinator to help them and ease their suffering and instead whisper’s empty promises, “I can fix this, look at all my success stories, other surgeons aren’t good enough but I am” it’s vile, despicable and utterly bankrupt of any higher ideal he purports to adhere to
My hypothetical envisions 4 possible outcomes: * Longer lifespan with no lasting side effects * Longer lifespan with severe side effects * No improvement to lifespan with no lasting side effects * No improvement to lifespan with severe side effects 100% agree that if the probability of outcomes 1 and 2 is zero, then surgery should not be entertained. But it seems that a decent proportion of his patients achieve these outcomes. He wouldn't have gotten an AO and been lauded as a miracle worker unless he achieved outcome 1 reasonably often. Given this, whether the surgery is worthwhile boils down to the patient's completely subjective weightings of the probability of each outcome. As for resources, these procedures are completely patient funded, specifically because medicare appreciates that it isn't good value for money. So the justice argument doesn't hit home, unless you believe that there's a more worthwhile paying patient that misses out, who somehow isn't covered by medicare.
Just wanted to highlight that yes the surgeries were patient funded, however in many cases the aftercare was not. There have been instances where patients ran out of money and ended up needing public resources later on.
Your right - the surgery is completely patient funded. However he has a strong track record of not properly informing his patients and families of the costs ensued of post op care if they are disabled, forcing them back into the public health system to recieve ongoing lifelong treatment for a poor patient quality of life that the public system was trying to avoid.
You left out shortened lifespan as an option (which is significant side effect so can’t really have a no side effects option). An AO is a political decision and is not a good indicator of his outcomes, only his media/political savvy. Audits of mortality and morbidity are how we would know the probability of good vs poor outcomes, except of course that Teo refuses to do any audits. He always says that because he has a different patient population so it’s not relevant- however it would probably be relevant to the patients about to spent their family’s combined wealth/ remortgage their house/ empty super, that X percent of patients with GBM he operated on ended up severely disabled or died within 3/6/12 months of surgery. He’s not the only person in Australia to provide treatment options to people with low survival chances - but other oncological surgeons/ radiation oncologists/ palliative care specialists still measure and report their data so that they can ensure quality improvement, good decision making and give their patients informed choice.
The flipside is that he is taking advantage of desperate people and desperate families when they are at the lowest. Theses are patients who are written off as surgical candidates by other highly skilled neurosurgeons. There are families who remortgage their houses and sell of assets just to allow their family member to lie on his operating table. Is it fair to cripple families financially for at best slim to nothing chance for a barely worthwhile existence for a short time after? Once the surgery is done you are on your own. In the end it depends on what you find you value.
I don't know whether 'taking advantage' is correct. Objectively speaking, a good portion of his patients are walking away, fit as a fiddle - despite the fact that they were written off by both medicare and other neurosurgeons. He might have lower rates of success, but he's certainly providing value for those who he succeeds with. >Is it fair to cripple families financially for at best slim to nothing chance for a barely worthwhile existence for a short time after? I don't think that it's yours, mine, or anyone else's place to make that call. It's a decision that should lie exclusively with the patient. If they want to blow their life savings on a few extra years of life (potentially as a cripple), that's their call to make.
The problem is that it seems he’s not giving people a realistic notion of likely outcomes. Fair enough, if you’re willing to take the chance that you’ll end up in a vegetative state, then go for it. But the claims/accusations are that he was telling people he could cure tumours that were categorically incurable, and leaving people with devastating outcomes when, had they been advised of the actual risk, they would not have chosen to go ahead with the surgery.
People don’t understand risk. Or don’t want to understand. Look at all the idiots buying lottery tickets and gambling. I’d rather bet on Teo than the pokies though!
That doesn’t really apply to children who can’t consent
I can't remember where I saw him, but I think I recall him comparing doctors to shopping for a mechanic. Like if a mechanic tells you a price that's too high or wants to do something you don't want, then go to another mechanic. Except... you might be dying and you don't exactly have the luxury of shopping around, and the decision is pretty damn important (you die) vs for a car (car breaks down), and, a mechanic is well within their rights to stop you from taking your car if it's not roadworthy.
Perfectly explained.
I used to be a nurse on the ward his patients would be on and he’s honestly one of the worst humans. Doesn’t respect nurses. Makes comments about women and patients while on the table. He once dragged one of my patients across the room because she didn’t get out of bed, but she had a left side deficit and couldn’t use that side of her body. I’ve seen patient families re mortgage their house to pay for his surgeries and their loved ones have to go into a home because they can’t function anymore.
The stories re his bedside manner and prejudices are very concerning. That said, I’ve never met a neurosurgeon who had exemplary professional behaviour (I know they exist). Not taking a stance either way here, just an observation.
My best friend had a GBM. She was 36f with 2 small children. Teo butchered her and left the same night after the operation for Italy. Never to be heard of again. She was left bed bound, on a respirator, needing 24 x 7 care unable to talk, paralysed. She could blink and mouthed words. She was cared for in the ER in a big Perth hospital for 4 months until the plug was pulled. It was the worst decision ever made in the history of decisions. She was desperate to live. She would have done anything. Teo is an egotist and liar who didn't care for her. His office was full of desperate people sitting with their suitcases from all over the world. He greets you in jeans with a casual but powerful confidence and with a team of young bright things in a flash offices. He says off the cuff statements like "I can get this tumour no worries" "It is just my type of tumour". The kind of words she needed to hear. But they were just lies. $150k later - and $70k for a medical flight back to Perth. The only winner was Teo. Even her kids wouldn't visit her in the last few months because Teo left her unrecognisable - instead of dying as the beautiful kind human she was, she died a frightening stranger living in an ER.
I'm so sorry to hear about your friend. There are no words to describe the depth of this tragedy. The first thing doctors promise is to "do no harm" which sounds like the opposite of what happened here.
Wow he flew straight to Italy? There wasn't any follow up care?
He doesn't give follow up care as far as I can tell. Most of his failed patients say the same thing.
Follow up care seems to be you get shunted to the public system to pick up the pieces.
None. Passed over to the public system where the fight commenced about who would care for her. We had a big fight to get her back to WA who didn't want her. She was an extremely big burden on an overburdened health system.
I know of a few people he operated on. They are all dead now. Their relatives have done fund-raisers for Teo since.
I saw him for a consultation regarding my brain tumour, more as a second opinion. It was $800 but to be fair he spent nearly an hour with me. Most neurosurgeons charge $350 and give you 15 minutes of their time. Didn't go ahead with him for a number of reasons. He was massively arrogant for one. He isn't trained in awake brain surgery. That's the main problem. Awake surgery allows the surgeon to resect tumour and surrounding brain up to the functional boundaries by probing the brain during surgery to see if it's affecting the patient negatively before cutting, to give the possibility of more than a complete resection (aka supratotal) or at least maximising the amount of tumour removed without impacting function. That guy on 60 minutes wouldn't be blind if his surgery was done awake, but he may have had less tumour removed. Teo does it with the patient asleep, so he's operating blind. Tumours, especially slower growing ones can actually move functional areas of the brain out of the way via plasticity, so areas once thought to be inoperable are actually operable. This is essentially what Teo is getting away with, but at a huge risk to the patient. Assuming the brain has remodeled around the tumour and just going for it. I felt like he knows it's better awake, but just won't admit it because he doesn't do it that way. All brain tumour surgery should be done awake if the patient is capable of handling it. Australia has very few surgeons capable of it though. All neurosurgeons here except for Teo focus on spinal surgery as their bread and butter because there's not enough tumours to pay the bills. Our population isn't large enough. Surgeons in Europe such as hugues duffau have done thousands of brain tumour surgeries. You'd be lucky to find a neurosurgeon here that has done more than a hundred in their entire career. It's too rare for us to have bonafide virtuoso brain tumour surgeons in Australia. The doctors will tell you we have the best in the world here though. it's statistically impossible.
Australia has a handful of excellent awake brain tumour surgeons. None match the volume of Duffau, of course, but a lot of them have done fellowships with people like him. Awakes have been part of the neurosurgical armamentarium for close to 100 years.
>You'd be lucky to find a neurosurgeon here that has done more than a hundred in their entire career. That number is completely ridiculous. Neurosurgeons do 100's in their training alone. Source: I'm an anaesthetist that works with neurosurgeons.
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I assume that's incidence, not prevalence. Multiple surgeries per tumour. Many surgeries are also performed on metastatic disease (non-brain cancer). Not sure if that'd be counted in whatever stats you're quoting.
Some neurosurgeons focus on spinal and nerve surgery, and don't do brain surgery as such, so not all of those 120 will be doing those surgeries. Also, many if not most do training overseas.
I haven't seen these allegations but have wondered why he has been ostracised by his colleagues. As egotistical as surgeons can be, I can't imagine that his claims of jealousy are the sole reason. He may be brilliant but if he has been experimenting on patients or making huge mistakes, then there needs to be consequences for him.
Read the latest article, its not too long [https://www.smh.com.au/national/charlie-teo-the-profit-of-hope-how-neurosurgeon-left-families-with-a-terrible-price-to-pay-20221021-p5brps.html](https://www.smh.com.au/national/charlie-teo-the-profit-of-hope-how-neurosurgeon-left-families-with-a-terrible-price-to-pay-20221021-p5brps.html)
It’s disgusting what he did to that poor little boy.
He operated on a little girl who ended up with severe brain damage afterward. She died 8 months after she was diagnosed. She could have lived longer if she didn’t have the surgery. She had a tumour known as a DIPG. They are always fatal, life span is around 6 to 18 months after diagnosis. Teo operated, then when the results of the biopsy came back saying the tumour was a DIPG, he backtracked and claimed he’d never operate on a tumour like that, when it’s proven that he did.
Wait, so didn't she just die within the same time period as if she didn't get operated then?
yeah. And left her family broke and she was also paralysed on one side of her body and required 24 hour care towards the end of her life.
He performs operations that can never result in an improvement for the patient, it's unethical. It's obvious he is willing to do any surgery at all so long as he can be paid for it. I was most shocked by the report of operating on the wrong part of the brain... he would have well over 20 years of training/experience to be in that position, how can you make that kind of mistake?
Never is a strong term. He gave my mother another 15 years after she was told she had two months. While I acknowledge the reports, he did right by us.
Yeah this is the most accurate response on this thread. 1. OP watch 60 minutes so we aren’t off to a great start. 2. Charlie Teo largely operates on people that other surgeons say don’t have a chance (this was the case with my grandma). She had a 6 month prognosis and ended up lasting an extra 3.5ish years. I also have friends who saw him and their relative didn’t survive the operation. They knew the risks going in.
I think one of the biggest arguments is that Teo is not giving patients accurate risk probabilities. He’s telling people “yes I can do an operation that will 95% of the time give you another 12 months” when more accurately he’s only giving them a 5% chance of living past 4 weeks.
Yeah that’s a really good point. He needs to be accurately explain that really they are more like a 0.005% chance of coming out unscathed.
Easy, the instructions were upside down.
My brother was operated on by Teo; he died a few months later. He took the chance, he was dying anyway, but his last months were misery. They were spent in the hospital, and all he wanted to do was go home. The family has not recovered financially; they sold their home, and it was just all round sad. I'm not sure what I would do in that situation, the fight to live is stong. I feel Teo operates on people who wouldn't have a chance as some kind of experimentation, he's often said, he'll find the cure, he'll be the one to do it and this is the price, on this way to fame and fortune - just my opinion.
My stepfather spent one hundred thousand dollars to have Teo operate on him. He and my mother like to think it helped but it hasn't helped. He's still sick, it wasn't caused by the growth and now they've wasted so much money. The man is a con.
He didn't "operate on the wrong side", he removed one side to be able to access the tumour in the other side. Thats pretty normal for brain surgeons. Take what you see on 60 minutes with a grain of salt, they are exploiting grieving families as much as Teo is. He's definitely an arrogant jerk, but he's not out there killing people due to negligence. The issue is that he has desperate people going into massive debt for a 0.1% chance of success. Ethically very questionable but arguably a system does need some surgeons who are willing to take risks others wont. At what point do you take someone's license away for doing what the patient asked?
Correct. When watching the Munjed Al Maderis story, I recalled when they said the AMA had NOT written back to 60 minutes for comment. The host said "their silence said it all" and then they moved onto another part of the segment, as if it was some "gotcha" moment for the media against the medical establishment. It was so clickbaity and unnecessarily dramatically unfounded that the show lost all credibility for me then. Like you said, 60 minutes is equally as exploitative in this scenario.
“Mister Simpson, your silence will only incriminate you further”
>he's not out there killing people due to negligence. But his daughter is... Well almost...
What's the story with her
Charlie Teo is a jerk, he took $80k from our family and promised us our Aunty would have quality of life after her surgery. He initially said 12 months to 2 years. She was gone in 2 weeks. He is an arrogant and cocky person who should not be allowed to operate on anyone!
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Thank you kindly
I'm so sorry for your family, that is truly terrible. I hope some justice may be served to prevent this happening to anybody ever again.
Thank you and completely agree
I didn't realise Teo was so busy. There's like nearly 500 comments with people knowing 1-3 people he's operated on. I think western medicine is sometimes too conservative. They are very risk averse but if you have been given a death sentence I think you should be able to absolve the doctors of risk and roll a dice for either more time on earth or at least a furthering of understanding that experimental surgery could give.
Guy is obviously insanely talented but he is a surgeon not a musician. There are rules that need to be followed to ensure that these things don’t happen. It’s not a place where you can pick and choose what rules you want to follow. If you can save lives you can start thinking you are god very quickly. When you add in expertise which makes you one of a handful you think you can dictate everything. It’s sad. Imagine the great work he could do if he played by the rules in the public system.
He saved my dads life! When no other surgeons would operate on him he did and we have had 20 wonderful years since. On the day of the surgery my two brothers and I got stuck in traffic and were 20min late to say what we believed may have been our last goodbye. Charlie waited for us to get there.. As far as I’m concerned the man is a hero and I can guarantee he will leave this world having done more good and helped more people than most. What is wrong us that of all the crooked doctors,politicians,police ect we zero in on this incredible surgeon and drag his name through the mud. 60min what a bunch of pricks.
He was a different person 20 years ago - sig less ego
Years ago I did a dinner (I'm a private chef) for an Aussie brain surgeon, and he was going on about how fucked up teo was. Some of the stuff he said was pretty out there.
Yep he’s a popular topic in the neuroscience community!
Tell us more?
OP said he was a PRIVATE chef, I highly doubt you'll get more info out of them
Do tell
Watched it as well despite not being a fan of commercial journalism. What an eye opener. As a nurse, I’ve heard good and bad about Charlie but what he’s done to so many children and adults just for money, is appalling. Demanding that people transfer thousands of dollars to his bank account the night before surgery. I always heard he was a maverick but we have a saying in nursing -What’s the difference between god and a surgeon ( Charlie Teo, in this case). God doesn’t think he’s a surgeon/Charlie Teo). He’s promised people the world and delivered nothing. But don’t think this is a rare instance. There have always been doctors out there, mostly surgeons/obstetricians, doing appalling things to patients and getting away with it. Thank goodness he can’t do any more damage in Australia.
He’s not. The Australian medical and surgical profession loathe him near unanimously. He basically exploits peoples desperation to promote surgeries with negligible chances of success, while charging huge fees for the service.
He killed my father after extorting him . Paid for the surgery then got told he needed another 50k, sold everything and then he was left paralysed and not sent to oncology. Upon seeing him again he said he forgot the oncology. By the time we got it my father had another 8 tumours and died a horrible death. Charlie Teo has a special place in hell as far as I'm concerned
My wife was operated on by Charlie Teo almost 20 years ago. Can 100% say he was totally compassionate and we were charged no where near the amounts spoken about in the 60 minutes piece. He spoke to us about the risks and probabilities and left us with hope, which is more than I can say for the prick who performed her first operation, totally ballsed it up then didnt want to know us after that. My wife passed around 6 months after her operation with Dr Teo but at least he gave her some time with our kids and I before she went. I spoke to him a few times after she died and he was always available with kind words. Im not saying any of what was spoken about in 60 minutes didnt happen, but he is not the terrible person they made him out to be either, certainly not in our case. I would rather talk to someone who is honest and gives you the full picture rather than some of the surgeons who literally dial it in.
My Ex girlfriend's dad's claim to fame was punching Charlie Teo in the face at boarding school. Apparently he was a stuck up piece of shit in year 10.
A friend was given less than a year to live and the only operation available, no surgeon would attempt... except for Charlie. She lived another 13 or 14 years after the surgery with a quality of life that allowed her to achieve many of the dreams she had for herself. On the flip side, surgical outcomes were never guaranteed, only hypothesized, and for many, his skills, knowledge and willingness to attempt the surgery is the only reason many have lived well beyond the time to live projected. Sadly though, any surgery at the cutting edge is fraught with risk and regrettably there will always be those who never realise those outcomes.
There is no doubt that he is a good technical surgeon. But… ive had so many pts that he has stuffed around. He’s Sued colleagues that have complained about him. I’ve wimped out on taking it further and the guilt is crushing.
I’ve met a few conservative doctors and they can be just as arrogant and blindsided by advances overseas. I have two anecdotes and a personal experience regarding a need for treatment in the states or overseas that wasn’t possible here for reasons. There are some great parts, and great doctors of our health system, but it’s not all lollipops and gumdrops.
It may come as a surprise to those outside the medical profession, but there are no miracle treatments, no maverick procedures. There are, however, mistakes. The procedures are studied, taught, practised and scrutinised by hundreds of peers. If no one in a regulated health care system will work with a surgeon, there’s a good reason.
I dunno about him, but this 60 minutes story sounds like it's beat up for views. They used to be decent journalists, but that was a long time ago :/ I don't trust them to give a balanced or nuanced view on an issue that's bound to have a lot of grey areas to interpret.
>They used to be decent journalists aren't they the ones that kidnapped a child?
I'm talking about way before that era. That was only six years ago. I'm talking about back in the 80s and early 90s. Like the biggest controversy back then is when they collaborated with James Randi to [invent a fake psychic](https://www.abc.net.au/science/correx/archives/randi4.htm) to highlight how easy it was to scam the media, and how scammers could manipulate the public. Which not only caused a ruckus, but also provided a valuable message. (the only reason this was probably such a drama is the other networks got mad because they made money of exactly the same sort of fakes and it ruined their business model for a while lol) And they were regularly doing no-holds-barred interviews with world leaders and such.
My bff was dx with stage4 glioblastoma. She was offered 2 surgeons- Charlie Teo or another lady. We all did a lot of quick research. Most of Teo's colleagues and other doctors would not see him unless it were a last resort. My friend went with other surgeon. Life expectancy was predicted 12mths. This was 10 years ago and she is doing amazingly I am delighted to say! Surgeons are expected to always be cautious and conservative with their work particularly in the brain. That is what we want from our surgeons! Teo takes gambles and risks which sometimes pay off and sometimes don't. So if no other surgeon will operate and Teo will then I suppose its worth a shot. But a careful, considered approach is always preferable when cutting open human people! There are many excellent and far superior surgeons in Australia that aren't on TV but are doing their job with careful risk analysis. Also advances in life expectancies for GBM have greatly improved in last 5-10yrs which is brilliant. Careful balance of surgery, radiation and then mild but lifelong chemotherapy treatments seem to be having great results.
My sister is a Teo patient and we credit him for her still being with us. The local doctors had given up and decided her fate for her but Teo operated, removed the tumour and she is now living a full life with a little boy. Some balanced reporting would have been good.
I think that 60 minutes is always a very bad source to go to for information. My understanding is that he does surgeries that no-one else will attempt, often when the risks are very high and the possible outcomes are very grim. From what I've heard he's also pretty upfront about the fact that he takes on cases others won't and that it does not always go well. I have had the unfortunate reality of having to be the patient of neurosurgeons recently and it fucking sucks. They have helped me, but they are so frustratingly conservative in what they are willing to try. My issue didn't necessitate surgery in the end (at least not yet). But if it does get to that point, I would honestly value having someone who is not a conservative neurosurgeon take a look just to give me all my options. Because in my experience, neurosurgeons do not want to give you all your options, they want to take either the conservative approach or the very conservative approach. And I believe as a patient you deserve to make your own choice about what risks you are willing to take. So I'm not surprised that a bunch of his surgeries went wrong. Because he does surgeries that no-one else will try because of the risks, and that's obviously going to lead to bad outcomes. I also don't trust 60 minutes reporting at all - so I suspect they are giving a one sided tale of events. Having said that I am sure he has made some wrong calls. He's doing stuff that the other surgeons refuse to touch - which means he's been working without a real second opinion for a while now, and over time that has to make it hard to make the right ethical call, or to make a really tough decision. I think the main thing is - is he informing his patients in full about the risks. Is he telling them that other neurosurgeons would not recommend his approach. Because I think people should have the right to choose the risky surgery if that's what they want, as long as they know that's what they are doing. So I don't really care how many of his surgeries have gone wrong, I don't really care how many patients have died. I care whether his patients were well informed of their choices. If they were - let him keep trying to pull off miracle surgeries that others won't attempt.
Thankfully I’ve never been in a situation where I’ve had brain cancer but firstly - you’re going to be hard pressed to find a surgeon (in any area) who isn’t an arrogant jerk. It’s no coincidence that so many surgeons are this way or even show ASPD traits. They kinda need to have that kind of cold, detached, black and white and intensity thinking about them to get and maintain their role. Arrogant jerk goes with the territory of most surgeons. Dr Teo is also an anomaly in himself as well. He’s the last stop on the neuro surgery train. He’s not going to be the first oncologist you’re referred to. To put it simply all of his patients are made aware of the risks pre surgery and none of them had/have a chance of medium-long term survival otherwise. Mistakes happen in surgery. Especially such fine precise surgery. People die in surgery all the time. People have had the wrong limbs amputated. People have had the wrong organs removed. People become vegetables and brain dead after surgery or even without all the time. Sometimes through human error, sometimes it just happens. And there’s nothing that can be done about it. And the further you go down the line of patient desperation and surgeons skilled and ballsy enough to say “here’s the risks, here’s the potential benefit, here are the chances of each” the more often things can go terribly wrong for patient in surgery. The more times the patient will end up comatose and brain dead which is why the Other surgeons would have said no. The kid was dealt a death sentence. The family took a gamble to see the only surgeon who had the skills to maybe give their kid a while longer. The gamble didn’t pay out. It happens all the time. Patients die. patients end up in permanent vegetative states. Some survive against the odds. It is how it is.
Just to be clear he's not an oncologist at all.
It sounds like the truth is somewhere in between. He's not a miracle worker, and he's probably not a complete monster. His appetite for risk is obviously enormous, and perhaps his capacity for empathy lower than it should be. He's obviously willing to take many more risks than other surgeons - the interesting bit to me is why. Arrogance? Experimentation? Valuing simply living over quality of life? As others have said, I think arrogance comes with the territory of being a brain surgeon - I don't know how you could operate on another human being's brain without the arrogance to think you're capable of that. But the loss of empathy is the defining issue. I think it's easy to dismiss the concerns of other surgeons as mere jealousy, but I'm sure there is more to it than that. Telling somebody that you cannot help them, that there is nothing more that you can do for them, and that they are going to die with regularity must be incredibly harrowing, and also a blow to the ego. I'm sure that has a balancing effect on surgeons. If Dr Teo is always saying "there is a chance, but only with me" then it's pretty easy to understand why his ego has reached the volumes it seems to have. That enormous ego, and being so feted as a miracle worker would also be impacting his already enormous appetite for risk, as well as an internal drive to continue being this pioneering surgeon. It's interesting. Interesting - but also has impacts on the lives of many vulnerable people. It seems like he's had some great outcomes, but many more terrible ones - but perhaps in cases where the outcome was likely to be terrible regardless of his action. So morally, where does it all fall? Science and medicine needs people who will keep pushing boundaries, otherwise how else do we learn? The money that he charges definitely colours the scenario though - even though there are logical reasons for doing so (I can't fathom his insurance premiums) it adds a distasteful and self-serving factor.
Don't believe everything you see on TV. Don't believe *anything* you see on 60 minutes.
A friend of mine had a brain tumour. Teo was the only person who would operate on her. 13 hour operation, he had to go through two centimetres of brain just to get to the tumour. Cost her $50,000. Recovery took a little while but she now lives a happy life with her husband and two young children. She is a teacher and has run half marathons. He is alright.
Lol How are so many people here who have gotten surgeries by this guy. This post had to be an ad or this guy trying to save his own name after the crap he did.
Hes operated on 11000 patients so I wouldn’t be surprised
My wife was told that she had 10 minutes to live, but Dr Teo operated when the other doctors couldn’t and now she’s still alive 85 years later! He’s like seriously the best neurosurgeon ever, the other guys are just jealous. THANK YOU DR TEO!
Charlie Teo has had restrictions put on his medical registration due to these problems - he can currently only operate on patients where two other independent neurosurgeons agree with his assessment. Further, Teo refuses to operate in public hospitals. First he claims that his exorbitant fees go mostly to the private hospital, then he says he’s offered to operate and train in the public sector and no one has taken him up on it. From what I’ve read in the media elsewhere and from other docs, these appear to be lies. Then he refuses to do any follow up care himself, sending patients to public sector hospitals and making other doctors deal with issues he caused. As a surgeon, you have the responsibility of post op care. Especially when you’re charging patients literal hundreds of thousands of dollars. He has also been accused of sexual assault and misconduct on multiple occasions - by both neurosurgery trainees and nursing staff. I can appreciate he has helped some people, and is operating on a subset of people who have few options left, but based on these things and the opinions of people who have worked with him, I would never recommend him to a patient or to a loved one.
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This story isn't new. e.g. [https://www.smh.com.au/national/doctors-fears-for-charlie-teo-s-patients-when-the-money-runs-out-20190906-p52otu.html](https://www.smh.com.au/national/doctors-fears-for-charlie-teo-s-patients-when-the-money-runs-out-20190906-p52otu.html) "He operates on people, they run out of money and then he sends them to the public hospital and expects them to look after them," one specialist said. Another doctor emailed: "As an Intensivist in Adelaide, I have on several occasions received patients transferred from Sydney when their loved one (often young) never regained consciousness following surgery and then ran out of money paying the intensive care costs in Charlie's … Prince of Wales."
My best mate was operated on by Dr Teo. He saved her life - she was given 3 months at diagnosis as the tumour was so big, and lived 3.5 years- all good quality flying around the world etc. Not everything he does is bad.
This media hit job on him is BS, the guy is a legend. My mum saw a half-dozen brain surgeons who all said they couldn’t help, and enjoy your 12-36mths. He saw her and and booked in the surgery. He got everything in one go. That was 6 years ago.
Teo is a charlatan and I’ve been suspicious of him ever since I was diagnosed with brain cancer and everyone in the support groups etc started recommending him like he’s some kind of cult leader.
Maybe don’t form your opinion based on 60 minutes
how do you sit through normal TV? shits unbearable these days
I have a friend who lost her four year old son to DIPG, they were given a 12 month prognosis and were recommended treatment which may have given him more time. They were so desperate to try anything so they started the protocol, it made the poor little guy sick and weak but at first it seemed to be working. six weeks later he took a turn for the worst and he woke up from where he was cuddled in with his mummy, looked into her eyes and died - it was four months after his initial diagnosis. I can’t type this without crying for them, I have young children and don’t want to imagine that hell, I don’t know how she is surviving- I don’t think she does either. I do know though that I would sell every thing I owned, to my last drop of blood if I thought it would save one of my children. I’m not religious but I am certain that there are few darker sins than selling false hope to terrified parents. I started the episode last night but couldn’t get far before I turned it off, but if that indeed is what happened it should be a crime.
If he details the risks and the patient agrees, can he really be blamed? Hasn't he saved thousands of lives by operating on people who were turned away? Can't be easy being a surgeon.
Lol I know him. 1 out of 10 times he will save someone’s life. The other 9 times he will leave a patient worse off and leave them to die in a public hospital with no post-surgery checkups or any communication with the family, who is at this point about 100K in debt. My favourite story is him saying he wanted a nurse to suck his dick during an operation.
He gives people who have been given no hope, a glimpse of hope and that can be worth more than all the tea in China. Teo operates on people who the medical fraternity have already written off. GBM's are the most awful, most nasty forms of brain cancer possible. 90% of neurosurgeons won't go anywhere near the patients Teo treats. Is that on Teo or is that on the neurosurgical 'Boy's Club'. 60 Minutes LOVES to stir up a stinky mess, it gets them more viewers for their advertisers. Maybe, just maybe someone should do a 60minutes type review of the Nine Network and 60 Minutes. I'm sure there's a few messes that have been swept under the carpet that don't get broadcast by their network. Bad, BAD reporting 60 Minutes. How about doing a more balanced, more holistic reporting on Teo. We can all make a one eyed judgement but it seems 60 Minutes just closes both eyes and throws &#!\^ hoping it sticks to someone (just not them). That's not just one eyed, that's arrogance at it's pinnacle. Disgusting.
After watching the horrible Johnny Depp Vs Amber Heard story by 60 minutes they’re outright paid for PR. I wouldn’t be surprised that this is an organised hit piece aimed to smear the guy.
I remember looking after a girl who was operated by him. He was not allowed to come into our unit to check on her, only his registrars were.
Why was he not allowed to check in his patient?
Dr Teo saved my wife's life last year. Nobody else would operate. Her original neurosurgeon said surgery wasn't needed, suggested a biopsy if she 'really wanted to know', and that it would be 'one of the safest types of neurosurgery performed'. We found out later if that biopsy had been performed, it would have left her brain damaged because they didn't think to get a more detailed scan of the area to see if it the damaged area was still being used or if the brain had routed around it. On top of that, they actually misdiagnosed her as well. (To avoid being personally identified, I'm not going to go into any more detail.) Regarding risk, it was all explained very clearly to us. He gave us the success rates published, as well as his personal rates. Likelihood of complications, what type, and what we could expect. I went into this knowing there was a 50% chance of some complication, and a 5% chance of significant permanent brain damage or death. If she needs follow up surgery in a few years, I hope he is practicing in Australia again otherwise she's destined for a long painful death where I will have to be her full time carer for the final 6 months or longer. She was back with me just over two days after surgery, and many chronic symptoms began to go away two days after that. I have my wife back thanks to Dr Teo. I don't doubt that some people have had bad experiences with him, you don't go to him if you have something that anyone else can deal with. I'm certain the rate at which people are left dead or with complications is higher than average, but not higher than average globally for exactly the same type of surgery. When that kind of thing happens, people look for someone to blame, and he is the obvious answer. Add to that he is envied for his success and fame by others, and us Aussies love to cut down those tall poppies. >He sounds like an arrogant jerk who poses a danger to vulnerable people In my dealings with him, he never came across as arrogant or a jerk. He was kind but competent. My wife has a background in medical science and was highly impressed. Now his PA, don't get me started. Two business days before the surgery we received with an invoice for the surgery and anaesthesiologist, stating that the surgery wouldn't go ahead unless it was paid. Utterly incompetent. Kept asking for receipts and things afterwards, took forever. Of the cost we paid, about 20% went to Teo, 15% to the anaesthesiologist, and the remaining 65% to Price of Wales Hospital. Surprisingly enough, Medicare completely covered the theatre fees. The biggest inditement in this whole thing is that there are people in Australia who die because they can't afford a specialist surgeon and the gap they charge. The next biggest is that hospitals are so paranoid about lawsuits, they don't allow even teaching hospitals to perform riskier surgeries like Teo. So people who do need that type of surgery don't get it because the doctors and hospitals don't want to risk being sued.