A doctor who was suspended after repeatedly calling for women to be raped and making racist remarks online also shared patients’ medical records, including X-rays of the chest of a four-year-old girl suffering from pneumonia and an X-ray of a broken arm.

Dr Christopher Kwan Chen Lee, an emergency medicine doctor, was this month suspended from practising for six weeks after the Tasmanian health practitioners tribunal found he made numerous posts in online forums promoting violence against women and racism.

But Guardian Australia has found numerous other online posts from Lee in which he shared images of patients undergoing medical procedures and of a drip he inserted into a patient’s arm. Another image shows him performing a spinal tap.

When forum users questioned his sharing of the images and warned that he may lose his job, Lee responded it was “perfectly okay” to post them because nothing in the images revealed the identity of his patients. He often boasted about being untouchable because of his position as a doctor in Australia, while the forums he posted on were hosted in Singapore.

In another post, Lee bragged about sharing explicit photos of a woman online to get back at her after she called him ugly. “A new legion of perverts” would be viewing her images, he wrote, “I won”.

Lee was employed by the Tasmanian Health Service between 2016 and 2018, before working in Victoria at the Box Hill hospital and the Latrobe Regional hospital. He graduated from the University of Melbourne in 2012. At his tribunal hearing the director of emergency medicine training at the Latrobe Regional hospital and the Knox Private hospital, Dr Jayantha Weeraratne, wrote a letter supporting Lee, describing him as “warm, engaging and affable” with “excellent communication skills”.

Three former students who studied with Lee and who now work as doctors contacted Guardian Australia to say they raised concerns about his behaviour in tutorials and while on clinical rotations as part of the university course. Two raised complaints with senior University of Melbourne and clinical staff in person.

“I also sat through tutorials and heard the appalling things he said,” one doctor, who did not want to be publicly identified, said. “It still gives me chills to think about it.”

She said she did not recall any disciplinary action taken against him, and he continued to attend classes and complete his studies.

She is part of a network of female doctors who support each other. She said the reaction from the network had been swift, with her colleagues saying they did not want to work alongside someone with Lee’s views.

She said when she saw Lee had been disciplined earlier this month for his behaviour, it made her feel “sick and mad” as she had raised concerns long ago.

“All of the women doctors are talking, supporting each other and saying that they don’t want him to work in medicine again,” she said.

She added that she would never share X-rays or photos of her patients, even if they did not have names attached, and that it was not allowed.

“Something in the photo or X-ray might still identify a patient, perhaps if they had a particular marking or unique injury,” she said.

A spokeswoman for the University of Melbourne said she could not comment on former students for privacy reasons.

“As part of developing its current medical course, the Melbourne Medical School has introduced a program of professional behaviour monitoring and fitness for practice review that is being replicated around Australia,” she said. “Standards of professional behaviour are held as equivalent to academic performance in assessment schedules and any student who doesn’t meet the standard may fail the course.”

The health practitioner regulator, Ahpra, said the Medical Board of Australia’s social media policy made it clear that a registered medical practitioner must act in the same way online as they do in person.

“The policy states that registered health practitioners should comply with confidentiality and privacy obligations, such as by not discussing patients or posting pictures of procedures, case studies, patients, or sensitive material which may enable patients to be identified without having obtained consent in appropriate situations,” a spokeswoman said.

The spokeswoman said the board initially received a notification about comments Lee posted in December 2016, but upon investigating further, more recent online posts were discovered.

In a post found by Guardian Australia but not included in the Ahpra investigation, Lee said of patients admitted with mental illness: “Pills, talking to them about their feelings – in certain cases, that stuff won’t work one bit. Sometimes, the only language these people understand is the language of violence.”

Lee continued to post after his suspension by the tribunal, writing: “We’ll see who has the last laugh.” This was despite being ordered by the tribunal to reconsider his online behaviour and undergo education about social media policies.

“I don’t take chickenshit from my colleagues,” he wrote in another post, while in others he made disparaging remarks about gay people. On Facebook, he described how he supported an emergency department patient who told a nurse “that her double chin would make a splendid shock-absorber”. Other posts were much more vulgar. He also shared explicit posts about his wife, who is a psychiatrist working in Victoria, and said if their marriage fell apart, “it would end in murder”. In another post, Lee posed with a gun.

Doctors are among those calling for Lee to be permanently banned from practising medicine, saying a six-week suspension is inadequate. Heart and lung transplant surgeon Dr Nikki Stamp wrote on Twitter that the lack of proper disciplinary action was “unacceptable”. “And there are good doctors who cannot get work or enough work, in public hospitals and then, there’s this guy,” she said. “Our patients deserve so much better.”

"The respondent is professional and punctual and he has an excellent work ethic" aka how to defend a doctor who advocated for rape and murder of women. He is suspended for just 6 weeks by the way.



Unacceptable. https://t.co/CYLha8JHMo — Dr Nikki Stamp FRACS (@drnikkistamp) April 24, 2019

Dr Jill Tomlinson, a reconstructive and hand surgeon, said: “Attitudes that condone or promote violence against women have no place in the medical profession.” Dr Daya Sharma, an eye surgeon, wrote that many family violence and rape victims attended emergency departments. “Patients usually don’t get a choice of doctor in an emergency. How can a doctor with these beliefs treat a rape victim?” he said.

In a statement, the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine said it was aware of Lee’s tribunal case.

“The college views discrimination and other unacceptable behaviour and conduct as having no place in the practice of emergency medicine or medicine more broadly, and notes all aspects of the reasons outlined in relation to the determination,” it said.

“The college will consider the matter under its relevant policies and procedures. As such, it would be inappropriate to comment further at this stage.”

Do you know more? melissa.davey@theguardian.com