In an online profile on a health website, Emil Shawky Gayed describes himself a “calm” and “sensitive” obstetrician and gynaecologist who has “practised medicine for many years”.

“I have always managed to implement all the changes required to be able to provide the best quality care as possible... my approach is sympathetic, warm, and nurturing,” the profile says.

Dozens of his former patients have a starkly different opinion. They describe him as someone who was rude and irate when questioned, and who dismissed or made light of their complaints of being in severe distress and pain. He has been found guilty by the New South Wales civil and administrative tribunal of professional misconduct for failing to adequately inform patients before performing surgery on them, and of needlessly performing surgeries such as hysterectomy and fallopian tube removal on women who could have been treated with painkillers and bed-rest. One of his patients died.

'I still feel mutilated': victims of disgraced gynaecologist Emil Gayed speak out Read more

But some of the hospitals where Gayed worked have no record of his employment. This is alarming given Gayed is now the subject of two separate inquiries investigating his treatment of women spanning five public hospitals.

What is known about Gayed is that he graduated from Egypt’s Ain Shams public university in 1976. The University’s faculty of medicine is one of the most highly-regarded medical training faculties in Egypt. A ledger of graduates held at the faculty’s registrar’s office shows Gayed obtained the second-lowest grade of ‘good’ out of a range of four grades ranging from ‘pass’ to ‘excellent’.

Records held by the Egyptian medical syndicate show Gayed registered as a doctor in 1977. Egyptian doctors seeking to work abroad sometimes require a certificate of good standing from the medical syndicate and permission from the ministry of health, depending on the requirements of their workplace. No record of such a letter exists on Gayed’s file with the syndicate. Syndicate records show while he was licensed to practise medicine in Egypt with heavy supervision in a residency or similar program, he would have been unable to practise as a specialist or a GP without a masters degree or further specialisation, which it has no records of him obtaining.

By 1982 Gayed was working overseas. Records from the General Medical Council, responsible for registering doctors to practise in the UK, shows Gayed registered there in 1982. The council has no record of where in the UK he worked or if he received further training there.

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By the 90s Gayed had moved to Australia where he trained to become a specialist gynaecologist and obstetrician. He graduated as a fellow of the Royal Australian College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists in 1993. While records of the first years Gayed worked in Australia are scarce, it is clear that within several years complaints and concerns arose about his work in his chosen speciality.

Gayed began working as a locum or visiting medical officer in rural and regional towns in NSW. He often consulted patients in private rooms and performed procedures on them in the public hospitals of those towns. Gayed did stints at Kempsey District hospital between 1990 and 2003, Grafton Base hospital between 1994 and 1995, Cooma hospital between 1994 and 1999, and Manning Base hospital between 1999 and 2016. He filled in for several months as an obstetrician and gynaecologist at Canberra hospital in 1996, and also did some work at Mona Vale hospital on Sydney’s northern beaches between 2002 and 2007. But the bulk of his career was spent in regional communities.

An investigation was first launched into Gayed in 2000 relating to his time working in Cooma, where general practitioners and midwives who worked with him there and in Canberra expressed concerns about his dismissive and uncaring treatment of women. While the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists confirmed it was subpoenaed for information about Gayed at the time, it no longer has records of what specific information was requested, or the outcome of any investigation. The ACT health department said it could find no records of Gayed as an employee, including as a contract medical officer or a visiting medical officer. Several senior doctors spoken to by Guardian Australia have confirmed, however, that he did work at Canberra Hospital as a locum in 1996, and that midwives especially had concerns about him. During this time, he performed ablation surgery on his own wife, which involves surgically destroying the lining of the uterus, at the John James private hospital. She was transferred to Canberra hospital’s emergency department after suffering complications.

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But the bulk of complaints surrounding Gayed relate to his most recent employment as a visiting medical officer at the Manning Rural Referral hospital in the small town of Taree on the mid-north coast of NSW. He consulted at his private clinic in Taree and at private rooms in Dee Why, a northern Sydney suburb 316km south. He appeared to return to his home at Collaroy Plateau, near Dee Why, on weekends, and regularly worshipped at the St Rewis Coptic Orthodox church.

Although staff at the public hospital and patients had serious concerns about Gayed spanning more than two decades, Gayed’s career did not start to unravel until 2015, when one of his patients made a complaint to the Health Care Complaints Commission. The complaint was made by a woman who nearly died after a procedure Gayed had performed. She mentioned to investigators that Gayed had paid for a friend of hers to get an abortion after he failed to detect she was pregnant before performing a procedure on her that would likely have harmed her unborn child.

This complaint sparked a wider investigation that found seven women received inappropriate medical treatment from Gayed between 2011 and 2016, and that many of them did not give informed consent to major surgery. The investigation found he needlessly removed the uterus of a woman who could have been treated with painkillers and bed rest, and that he removed another woman’s healthy right fallopian tube. After details of their cases were published by Guardian Australia, dozens more women came forward describing traumatic surgeries they did not want or did not need at the hands of Gayed. Some alleged they were left with serious infections and nerve damage.

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Manning hospital scanned Gayed’s ablation records and found ten further patients who Gayed had performed ablation on despite the presence of hyperplasia – which can be an early sign of cancer – in the uterus. Ablation should never be performed on women with hyperplasia because scarring from the procedure can mask cancer growth and trigger the development of cancerous cells. One of Gayed’s patients died after he failed to tell her that tests revealed she had hyperplasia. He performed ablation on her and did not follow- up or refer her to a cancer specialist. The hospital found Gayed had performed hundreds of ablations on women, at a far higher rate than other gynaecologists.



Dr Osama Ali, the clinical director of Manning hospital who is now reviewing the cases of more than 45 women who have made further complaints to a hotline the hospital established for Gayed’s patients, said he “struggled to understand why” Gayed performed needless procedures on women.

“It’s a question for him to answer, why he’s operated on all these ladies,” Ali said. “Whether it’s a matter of money, increasing his skills, recklessness, a lack of insight... I can’t tell. They’re all possibilities.” He said there was never any indication that Gayed was mentally unwell.

The NSW Medical Board is now also under review for its responses to ‐ and management of ‐ historical complaints about Gayed.

The Guardian has tried to contact Gayed to comment on the accusations against him, but he has not returned calls. His current whereabouts is unknown.

Additional reporting by Adham Youssef in Cairo.