High Court finds 2 doctors may have colluded to take sexual advantage of female patient but not woman who filed complaint

• A judge found Dr Julian Ong and Dr Chan Herng Nieng did not collude to take sexual advantage of Ms Serene Tiong
• But both doctors could have targeted a female patient of Dr Ong’s
• Dr Ong most likely gave the patient’s details to Dr Chan so Dr Chan could have sex with her, the judge said 

SINGAPORE — A High Court judge on Friday (Oct 2) partially dismissed a lower court’s decision that two doctors had taken advantage of vulnerable female patients to have sex with them. 

But Justice See Kee Oon cautioned that surgeon Julian Ong Kian Peng and psychiatrist Chan Herng Nieng had “no moral victory” to claim, chiding them for their “blatant treatment of women as sex objects”.

The judge found that they did not collude to take sexual advantage of Ms Serene Tiong, who had filed a complaint against them. 

Justice See nevertheless agreed that both doctors, who are close friends, could have come together to target a female patient of Dr Ong’s, identified only as K.

Ms Tiong had an extramarital affair with Dr Chan, but ended it after discovering WhatsApp text messages between him and Dr Ong. 

She then filed a complaint with the Singapore Medical Council (SMC).

Dr Ong sued Ms Tiong for defamation, claiming that his reputation and well-being had suffered distress.

In April, District Judge Lynette Yap dismissed the suit, but Dr Ong appealed the decision.

Justice See, in ruling on the appeal on Friday, found that Ms Tiong’s charge was justified to some extent.

The main charge or “sting” that she needed to justify was that both doctors had colluded to take advantage of vulnerable female patients, that they used their position as doctors to find patients to have sex with, and that they exchanged information on these women. 

Justice See said that any relationship of trust that Dr Chan and Ms Tiong shared was premised on their affair, not on a doctor-patient relationship. 

While Dr Chan had allegedly supplied her with the drug Xanax for her anxiety, Justice See said it could not be established when she became his “de facto patient”. He therefore rejected the district judge’s finding that Ms Tiong had been a vulnerable patient.

The judge added that Dr Chan and Dr Ong had not deliberated on having a foursome with her or taken preparatory steps to do so beyond Dr Ong telling his friend in a text message: “We can always meet one day if Serene is open-minded enough to see me with someone (else).”

Dr Ong had testified during the trial that it was a “joke”.

SEXUAL INTENTIONS 

As for K, a property agent, Dr Ong had given her phone number to Dr Chan ostensibly for Dr Chan to buy property. 

Dr Ong told him to “feel free to play your game” and made a reference to having anal sex with the patient.

Justice See noted: “It was undoubtedly unscrupulous and impermissible for Dr Ong to target K in this manner, knowing that as a property agent, she was more willing to meet potential clients and more vulnerable to being set up.”

Dr Ong had most likely given K’s details to Dr Chan, so that Dr Chan could have sex with her, Justice See added.

He noted that K’s case, however, may have been a one-off instance and the court cannot speculate that because one patient had been targeted, others in the past were or others in the future would be.

“Nevertheless, I am unable to say that Dr Ong has been fully vindicated… They do not have any reason to hold their heads high, for there is no moral victory that they or (Ms Tiong) can lay claim to,” the judge said.

“Their smug boasts of their trysts with various women, as well as the demeaning terms in which they gloatingly describe their sexual conquests, speak to their true character.”

Dr Chan had confessed to touching a colleague inappropriately in the past and Dr Ong had come clean during the trial about cheating on his wife several times.

Justice See said: “They may be perfectly competent doctors and their sex lives are, of course, private matters. But their blatant treatment of women as sex objects sullies whatever professional reputation they might have built up for themselves.” 

The judge ordered Ms Tiong to pay S$40,000 in costs for the lawsuit and appeal, and a district court will assess damages she owes Dr Ong.

Dr Ong was also granted an injunction restraining her from publishing the defamatory content.

ABOUT THE CASE

Ms Tiong, a business development manager at Thomson Medical Centre, had an extramarital affair with Dr Chan.

When she discovered WhatsApp messages between him and Dr Ong, she took photos of the messages and lodged a complaint with SMC. 

She also emailed her complaint to a number of doctors at the Singapore General Hospital, where Dr Chan previously worked, as well as two doctors in private practice. 

In these email messages, she wrote that Dr Chan and Dr Ong had been colluding to take advantage of other vulnerable female patients. 

Both doctors, she said, exchanged information on patients and colleagues who were deemed easily taken advantage of to “satisfy their immoral desires”. 

After the district judge’s ruling in April, SMC handed out interim orders against both doctors. They were instructed not to contact female patients other than for medical purposes.

Dr Ong runs a private practice at Mount Elizabeth Novena Specialist Centre, and was suspended from practising at Gleneagles, Mount Elizabeth, Mount Elizabeth Novena and Parkway East hospitals.

Dr Chan is also in private practice.