A Tasmanian GP has had his medical registration cancelled after engaging in an inappropriate sexual relationship with an ill patient who also worked at his clinic.
Dr Samuel Marcus Sorby Adams was found guilty of professional misconduct by the Tasmanian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (TASCAT) over a relationship that lasted ten months in 2022.
The tribunal heard Adams became obsessive after the woman ended the relationship, bombarding her with up to 50 text messages a day and tracking her movements around the Ulverstone clinic where they both worked.
Adams, who was a principal at the Victoria Street Clinic, admitted his behaviour was inappropriate and breached national health practitioner laws.
The case centred on his relationship with a receptionist who had been a patient at the clinic since 2000.
He consulted with her on at least seven occasions between 2015 and March 2022, prescribing medication while their personal relationship was developing.
The tribunal found Adams initiated contact by texting the woman’s personal mobile number, which he obtained from staff contact sheets.
Their conversations turned into regular meetings outside work and eventually became intimate.
“I accept that my relationship with [her] was inappropriate from the point of initial text exchange,” Adams told the tribunal in a statement.
“Initially I perceived her primarily as a staff member rather than a patient and I did not recall our clinical interactions from prior to 2016.”
When the woman tried to end the relationship in May 2022 by not responding to his messages, Adams’s behaviour escalated.
He would send dozens of texts daily, seek her out at the reception desk and ask other staff about her whereabouts.
TASCAT found his conduct after this was “obsessive and highly inappropriate” and would have made the woman’s working life “extremely difficult”.
“The tone, frequency and intensity of the text messages from the respondent to [her] that are before me are particularly concerning,” the tribunal found.
The relationship came to light when another clinic principal reported Adams to the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency in November 2022.
He resigned from the clinic and voluntarily stopped practising in December that year. He told the tribunal in a statement he was “deeply remorseful”.
The Medical Board of Australia had sought a three-year disqualification from reapplying for registration, but the tribunal imposed a 12-month ban, taking into account Adams’s voluntary absence from practice.
His registration was cancelled immediately and he cannot apply for re-registration until June 2026.
