A Mayfair cosmetic surgeon has been suspended for two months after forging a patient’s signature on a treatment form and lying when they discovered the doctor had let her business partner take over halfway through a procedure. The watchdog for medical practitioners found Dr Terry Loong’s actions in April 2020 amounted to “serious misconduct” and suspended her from the register on July 27 this year.
The Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service pored over private WhatsApp messages, medical records and statements and found Dr Loong acted dishonestly when she forged Patient A’s signature on a consent form on April 9, 2020, and then lied to the client by saying she had carried out her entire treatment, and falsified medical notes to that effect.
Dr Loong, an aesthetic and hormone doctor who graduated from King's College London and ran Dr Terry Clinic with her business partner, in North Audley Street, Mayfair, at the time, had referred the incident to the watchdog herself and taken ‘remedial’ steps like leaving the clinic and apologising to Patient A. However the tribunal decided het fitness to practise was impaired.
Dr Loong, who now runs a new clinic in Harley Street independent of her ex-business partner, who is named as Ms B in reports, claimed in mitigation that she was “bullied” by her into forging Patient A’s signature on the written consent form after carrying out cryotherapy - using extreme cold to destroy abnormal tissue or cancer cells - at the client’s home.
Two weeks later, Dr Loong gave Patient A another round of cryotherapy at the London clinic but failed to tell the client Ms B, who was not a doctor according to the tribunal report, had taken over and carried out most of the treatment. When the patient told Dr Loong she knew Ms B had carried out the treatment, the doctor lied to Patient A by saying her business partner had only used a Cyropen to cool the skin at the end of the treatment. She then wrote this down in Patient A’s medical notes despite knowing it was untrue, a report by the tribunal showed.
Representing Dr Loong, Mr Anthony Haycroft said his client accepted her actions undermined trust in the profession but that it was a one-off, unplanned incident that was confined to only one patient. He claimed Patient A had already given verbal consent for the procedure at the time and that his client had been bullied by Ms B who urged her not to return for a signature because it would look unprofessional.
Mr Haycroft claimed his client felt she could not say no to Ms B, whom she was scared of. He said Dr Loong had shown “previous good character” in her 20-year career and felt remorse for her actions. He added: “Ms B had an unpredictable mood and would easily ‘blow up’, as described by Dr Loong, if she was dissatisfied with something. For example, on 9 April 2020, Dr Loong’s view was that ‘we shouldn’t do it … we should get the patient to sign retrospectively’. However, Dr Loong was prevented from going back to the patient ‘as it would look unprofessional’."
He said other evidence backed up claims about Ms B’s character and that his client was doing her best to keep the peace at the time and feel accepted by her business partner. He also claimed Ms B fraudulently called herself a doctor despite failing her undergraduate medical degree. A former director of Edenology, the registered name under which Dr Terry Clinic was listed at Companies House, said Ms B denied failing her exams however they are no longer in contact with her.
Dr Loong stopped working voluntarily for Ms B on August 5, 2020, and referred the matter to the GMC a week later. A complaint was then made against Dr Loong on August 18, 2020. The doctor met Ms B while working together in Bali back in 2017. The pair were said to be close “like sisters” with Ms B lending Dr Loong money during a period of financial hardship, the tribunal was told. But their relationship turned toxic shortly after opening Dr Terry Clinic, which has now closed, in 2019, the tribunal heard.
In its report, the tribunal, which is part of the General Medical Council (GMC), said: “Dr Loong’s actions were fundamentally dishonest and undermined the need for doctors to be transparent and honest with their patients.
“The tribunal found that Dr Loong’s actions brought the profession into disrepute and undermined public trust and confidence in the profession and has breached a fundamental tenet of the profession. Therefore, the tribunal concluded that Dr Loong’s conduct fell so far short of the standards of conduct reasonably to be expected of a doctor as to amount to serious misconduct.”
The report added: “Whilst it is accepted that Dr Loong has worked hard to remediate and has achieved a great deal on her personal journey, the tribunal finds that the second and third limb of the overarching objective [upholding professional standards and trust in the profession] are engaged and would be undermined if the tribunal did not make a finding of impairment in this case to reflect the seriousness of the misconduct."
Dr Loong was suspended on July 27, 2023. Dr Loong was contacted for comment but did not provide one by the time of publishing. Attempts were made to contact Ms B however the BBC's Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) was unable to do so, but asked for details to be passed on by a third party. A Dr Terry Ltd director told the LDRS business partner is believed to have left the country.
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