4 hours ago
7
A Perth vet has been struck off and banned from re-applying for registration for five years after a multitude of complaints against him in relation to the deaths of two dogs.
Dr Adrian Burstein was found to have engaged in 22 counts of professional misconduct by the State Administrative Tribunal while working as a vet at his Clarkson practice, Ocean Keys Veterinary Hospital. A further 13 complaints against him were dismissed.
A Perth vet has had his registration cancelled following complaints from two pet owners.Credit: Getty
The SAT findings, released on Monday, related to the care and treatment of two dogs; Malo and Meggs.
The documents stated Malo, a five-year-old Dogue de Bordeaux, was taken to the clinic in January 2019.
He was kept overnight, with Burstein later telling the tribunal he monitored the dog throughout the night, even charging Malo’s owners an overnight monitoring fee, but the dog died of a ruptured spleen before he could be operated on the next morning.
In a text message to the dog’s owners the evening he died, Burstein stated that Malo was “alone for very very few periods last night”.
However, the tribunal found that was a lie and Burstein had spent much of the evening at home, and therefore did not intensively monitor the dog.
Throughout the dog’s admittance, Burstein communicated with his owners via text message, telling them the dog was doing well, and claimed to have examined him about 6am the following morning, which the tribunal also found was a lie.
At that time, he sent the couple a photo of the dog’s gums with the caption, “stable for now” and “colour good”, implying that he had just checked the dog that morning.
But evidence later showed the photo had actually been taken the night before, and the dog was most likely already dead by 6am that morning.
The tribunal also found that Burstein wasn’t even at the hospital when he messaged the owners that their dog was doing well and was at his nearby home instead.
After Malo’s owners made a formal complaint about Burstein, and he was investigated by the Veterinary Practice Board of WA, he wrote a statutory declaration claiming that his late father, Dr David Burstein, who worked occasionally with his son when he was visiting from South Africa, was at the hospital the entire night actively monitoring the dog.
David Burstein was not even in Australia at the time of Malo’s admittance, the tribunal found.
“For a veterinarian to deliberately mislead the owner of an animal about the quality/standard of care being provided to that animal and about the condition of that animal at a particular point in time is conduct which we are satisfied, and we find, constitutes professional misconduct,” the tribunal wrote in its findings.
“It is inconsistent with a person being a fit and proper person to hold registration as a WA veterinarian … falls substantially short of the standard of professional conduct that could reasonably be expected to be observed by veterinarians of good repute, competence, safety and diligence and would reasonably be regarded as disgraceful or dishonourable by veterinarians of good repute and competence.”
In relation to the second dog, Meggs, a female American Staffordshire terrier, the tribunal found Burstein demonstrated gross incompetence in relation to the care that she was given in December 2020.
Meggs had saddle thrombus, an aortic blood clot which deprived her back half of bloodflow. Several vets had already advised Meggs’ owner that Meggs needed to be euthanised, but Burstein decided to operate instead.
Meggs died during the surgery, leading to the dog’s owners making 14 complaints against the vet, including claims Burstein failed to obtain the dog’s full clinical history, did not properly monitor her during the night, and that he “recklessly” understated the severity of the dog’s condition and overstated the prospects of success of the surgery.
The tribunal again found Burstein was “intentionally dishonest” in a statutory declaration about the level of monitoring he gave the staffy overnight before her death.
Loading
The Veterinary Practice Board of WA took the matter to SAT in a bid to have Burstein’s registration as a WA vet cancelled indefinitely, and that he be fined $22,000.
However, the tribunal instead struck him off for five years and issued a $5000 fine.
It’s the third reprimand for the South African-born vet, who had previously been banned from working for five months in 2022 after he was found to have fallen “substantially short” of the standard expected of professional veterinarians in keeping records.
Ocean Keys Veterinary Hospital is understood to be under new ownership.
Most Viewed in National
Loading
