A Sri Lankan doctor who practices as a GP in Wodonga, Victoria, touched a medical student inappropriately and sexually harassed her, a tribunal has found.
The Victoria Civil and Administrative Tribunal last week handed down findings that Dr Widana Pushkara Epa, who did his medical training in Belarus before moving to Australia in 2009, failed to maintain professional boundaries with a placement student identified only as Ms P.
A panel heard that on October 16, 2021, Dr Epa touched the medical student’s hip and thigh while she was performing an excision on a patient, and later that day asked for her address and phone number, although the latter request was not found to be a breach.
On October 20 he placed his hand on Ms P’s inner thigh for about two minutes on one occasion, and then on several other occasions that were “inconsistent with the contact being necessary, accidental or otherwise unintentional”, the tribunal found.
The next day Dr Epa placed his hand on her inner thigh again, placed his left arm around her waist and buttock region, and asked her if he could come to her house, according to the findings.
Dr Epa claimed that he had been unfairly or wrongly accused of sexually harassing Ms P and that he had absolutely no intention of inappropriately touching or harassing her.
But the panel stated that despite Ms P not being prepared to say categorically at the hearing that Dr Epa was sexually motivated, they were comfortably satisfied that his “conduct in touching Ms P in the way he did (on 20 and 21 October but not 16 October), was sexual conduct”.
“His physical contact with Ms P was not necessary or accidental or otherwise unintentional. It was repeated. Of particular significance is that it involved parts of the body generally understood to be ‘private’,” the panel stated.
“The touching included Dr Epa rubbing, brushing, stroking or caressing Ms P, or leaving his hand on her for longer than could be consistent with accidental or otherwise unintentional contact.”
“We are comfortably satisfied that his conduct in touching Ms P in the way he did (on 20 and 21 October but not 16 October), amounted to sexual harassment of Ms P.
“We indicate further that we are comfortably satisfied that by his conduct in touching Ms P in the way he did (on 20 and 21 October but not 16 October), Dr Epa took advantage of the power imbalance between supervisors/assessors and students.”
The panel was not comfortably satisfied found that in asking whether he could come to Ms P’s house Dr Epa had engaged in sexual conduct or taken advantage of a power imbalance, but found that he had failed to maintain professional boundaries.
Ms P was found to be a “credible and reliable” witness, and the panel noted that she was “evidently unwilling to take the step of attributing to Dr Epa a sexual or ‘malicious’ motivation”.
She told a friend and fellow student known as Witness C that she did not want Dr Epa to get in trouble, and when asked about that statement by Dr Epa’s counsel she “expressed apprehension that she could suffer adverse consequences as a whistleblower in the medical profession”.
She did not return to the clinic after October 21 and finished her placement elsewhere.
Dr Epa had four health practitioners describe him as a person of good character, and he had no prior notifications.
The panel will meet again to make determinations, and Dr Epa has not been banned from practicing.
Header image: Dr Epa (supplied).
