A FORMER Hunter ambulance officer, police officer, Army medical officer and University of Newcastle scholarship-winning medical graduate found guilty of professional misconduct with a female patient has been cleared to practice medicine again.
Dr Keith Brennan was found guilty in 2017 of 12 complaints of unsatisfactory professional conduct after a NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal (NCAT) hearing.
The tribunal heard that in 2014 Dr Brennan, who was married at the time, started a sexual relationship with a woman who was a patient, and engaged in inappropriate sexual contact with a second woman patient.
The tribunal heard that Dr Brennan instructed some of his patients, including the two women, not to make appointments with the Hunter medical practice where he worked, but to go directly to seats outside his consulting room.
Dr Brennan continues to deny he had a sexual relationship with the patient, but said he accepted the tribunal's finding.
During an NCAT hearing in April, Dr Brennan applied to be reinstated and expressed his remorse.
"I disgraced myself and in doing so, my profession. I abused the trust placed in me as a medical practitioner, and in the profession which I love, which I deeply and sincerely regret," he said.
The tribunal found this week that Dr Brennan acknowledged he "behaved very badly in many areas of his life and he accepts full responsibility for it".
"He acknowledges that he allowed friends to become patients and became friends with existing patients," the judgement reads.
"His membership on Facebook complicated his relationship with patients even further.
"He acknowledges that he should have taken active steps to keep his private and social life as separate as possible from his professional life."
Dr Brennan suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder following his time in the Army and struggled with alcohol addiction after losing his registration, but has not had a drink for two years.
The father-of-four was granted leave to apply to the Medical Board of Australia for re-registration as a GP under a series of conditions including that he accept supervision for at least two years, not drink alcohol, see a psychiatrist and limit the number of hours he works.
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