WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT
Former colleagues of a homosexual Singapore-born veterinarian who admitted consuming dog semen are furious over a tribunal decision allowing him to continue working with animals.
Adelaide vet Dr Marcus Wei Sheng Tan was last year fined $5,000, reprimanded, ordered to pay hearing costs and restricted to working under indirect supervision by the South Australian Civil and Administrative Tribunal, and is now working at a new clinic.
Five vet nurse former colleagues of Dr Tan have now spoken out, with one calling the decision a “slap in the face” and another saying she had left the industry in disgust as a result, The Advertiser reported.
One said she had found Dr Tan “super odd” due to his habit of sitting in dog cages by himself, and said it was “gut-wrenching” that he was still allowed to practice.
“It’s such a loose term for them to use being under indirect supervision, so he has even less supervision than what a nurse does,” she said.
“He is doing unspeakable acts to (animals) that cannot speak, how can you trust anybody like that?”
A second nure said: “I cannot believe he got away with it. We just didn’t want him working with animals anymore.”
“I just can’t believe he’s still practising. I just feel that the vet board doesn’t care about animals, the system doesn’t care about animals,” said another.
Dr Tan did not dispute that he sprayed animal semen from a syringe into his mouth in September 2020, but said he did it out of “sheer curiousity” about the taste, and denied having any sexual attraction to animals.
“I kind of got curious, you know, in my mind, that, that because if there’s salt in there, is it going to taste salty? So, that was my main, sort of, motivation. Is for me to find out, basically, about its taste,” he said.
In cross-examination he said there was no sexual aspect to his actions, agreed they were “unprofessional” and would be repulsive to the public, but did not agree he acted unethically.
The tribunal also heard Dr Tan had never been in an intimate relationship, that he was sexually attracted to men and not women, and that he had homosexual fantasies.
The manager at Dr Tan’s veterinary practice told the tribunal she had seen inappropriate images of dogs on his phone, which she asked him to delete as they violated patient confidentiality. No police action was taken due to lack of evidence.
Dr Tan was also found to have inappropriately touched animals in his care, but other allegations regarding the euthanisia of a puppy and another case of alleged inappropriate touching were not found to be proven by the tribunal.
