2 weeks Ago By Melissa Meehan
A doctor who stole a colleague's prescription pad and forged her signature had his tangled web of lies uncovered when he took his crimes interstate. or signup to continue reading His conduct was revealed in court documents presented before the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal last week. Peter Whyte was working at a West Australian hospital in June 2020 when he stole the prescription pad from a colleague.
He then moved to Victoria in January 2021 and presented forged prescriptions he had written in his own name for self administration between March and May that year. Many were dispensed but a vigilant pharmacist queried a prescription for Panadeine Forte. After noticing the same substance had been recently filled at a different pharmacy, the pharmacist checked with Dr Whyte's colleague who said she had not written the script and recognised his handwriting.
That colleague and another medical practitioner from the WA hospital Dr Whyte had worked at notified the Medical Board of Australia and the pharmacist alerted Victoria Police. During a police search of Dr Whyte's home in Victoria, they found a range of substances, including some he obtained from the forged prescriptions, overseas or online. A number of those medicines are known as Schedule 4 poisons and included a drug commonly used to treat and prevent hormone receptor-positive breast cancer and other pain medications.
Police also found an imitation firearm for which Dr Whyte did not have an authorisation. Thirty criminal charges followed and after pleading guilty in the Melbourne Magistrates Court, Dr Whyte was fined $2500 without criminal conviction. Last week, VCAT reprimanded Dr Whyte for his actions and disqualified him from reapplying for registration for 18 months.
Given he has not held a practising registration since January 2023 and has not worked at all since February 2022, Whyte would be out of medical practice for a total of three years and seven months. "We had no difficulty in finding that the totality of Whyte's conduct was professional misconduct," senior tribunal member Anna Dea said in her written findings. DAILY Today's top stories curated by our news team.
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