Speaker 1: Goodyvery welcome to conversations. We have a special guest. Not
Speaker 1: that everyone is not special, but Charlie too is a
Speaker 1: unique individual. In twenty eleven, he was appointed a Member
Speaker 1: of the Order of Australia for his pioneering efforts into
Speaker 1: development of I Better Get This right, minimally invasive techniques
Speaker 1: in neurosurgery. In twenty twelve he was invited to give
Speaker 1: the Australia Day Address to the nation, and in twenty
Speaker 1: thirteen he was the first non politician Australian to address
Speaker 1: the US Congress. He was for seven years have named
Speaker 1: the most trusted person in Australia, but there's been issues
Speaker 1: around his brilliance as a neurosurgeon. In twenty twenty two,
Speaker 1: we had to endure a hearing with the New South
Speaker 1: Wales Healthcare Complaints Commission. Now, look, I'll claim bias here
Speaker 1: because I've met Charlie. I've attended his foundation functions. I've
Speaker 1: heard the testimonials from people whose lives he's either saved
Speaker 1: or prolonged. For le Man himself, Charlie, Charlie T, how
Speaker 1: how are you?
Speaker 2: Very good? Cons It's nice to be here.
Speaker 1: We were delayed. You apologize for delaying out chat today
Speaker 1: because you were locked in conversation with the patience of yours.
Speaker 1: Can you give us some indication of how those sort
Speaker 1: of conversations go.
Speaker 2: It's quite ironical actually that you mentioned already the tribunal
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty two, so that's the elephant in the room.
Speaker 2: So at least we can talk about that. And I
Speaker 2: guess at the end of the day, the tribunal found
Speaker 2: me guilty of professional misconduct because of two reasons. One
Speaker 2: that I was overly optimistic and I didn't give patients
Speaker 2: a reasonable idea of the risk of surgery. And two
Speaker 2: is that I gave contrary second opinions to patients about
Speaker 2: whether they should or should not have surgery, and if
Speaker 2: it didn't match the opinion that they got before me,
Speaker 2: then of course that was something that I did wrong.
Speaker 2: I should listen to my colleagues essentially, so to talk
Speaker 2: about an one identified me as a bad surgeon. So
Speaker 2: in fact, even my greatest attractors have said that I'm
Speaker 2: a talented, good surgeon. So they all had to do
Speaker 2: with my consent process. So when I heard that, that's
Speaker 2: the one thing that I'm actually most proud of, and
Speaker 2: many of my fellows who come to learn from me
Speaker 2: from overseas, from the most you know, the most reputable
Speaker 2: universities in the world, they almost always say, you know,
Speaker 2: we've learned so much neurosurgeon Charlie. But what we've learned
Speaker 2: mostly is how to treat how to treat our patients
Speaker 2: with respect and autonomy. And so the reason I was
Speaker 2: delayed to this podcast is because, you know, I like
Speaker 2: spending time with my patients. I enjoy getting to know them.
Speaker 2: I don't like rushing the interview. A lot of surgeons
Speaker 2: or doctors in general, give an amount of time to
Speaker 2: their patients and then if that time runs out, they
Speaker 2: could of wrap up the interview and hurried along. And
Speaker 2: I know that if I was a patient, I wouldn't
Speaker 2: want my doctor to do that. I'd want him to
Speaker 2: spend time with me, answer all my questions, be honest
Speaker 2: and be very candid. And that's why I was delayed.
Speaker 2: This patient had a particularly bad tumor. It's life threatening.
Speaker 2: She had received the opinions of many different doctors. She
Speaker 2: was incredibly intelligent and well informed. You know, the last
Speaker 2: thing I wanted to do was rush the consultation. She
Speaker 2: needed a level of comfort and reassurance that I was
Speaker 2: there to talk about her case, to talk about her circumstances,
Speaker 2: and to talk about my experience and my opinion about
Speaker 2: what should and should not be done with her tumor.
Speaker 2: So yeah, ended up being ninety minutes rather than the
Speaker 2: usual sort of an hour, but that's what she required,
Speaker 2: and you very kindly allowed me to sort of delay
Speaker 2: this interview so I could treat her with the sort
Speaker 2: of respect that I'd wanted to be treated with when
Speaker 2: I saw a doctor.
Speaker 1: I've heard you say that when you are discussing outcomes
Speaker 1: with patients, you give them four options. Can you run
Speaker 1: through those options? You know?
Speaker 2: The do? It's a narrative that I used with all
Speaker 2: my patients, and I've used it for the last thirty years.
Speaker 2: And so again, all the more reason why I find
Speaker 2: the findings of the tribunal so abhorrent. So I stayed
Speaker 2: to look. There are four potential outcomes. Is a win win, win, lose,
Speaker 2: lose win, or a lose lose, And sadly, you could
Speaker 2: fall into any one of those categories. Now, sure there's
Speaker 2: more chance you're going to fall into the better categories,
Speaker 2: but you could fall into any category. And lose. And
Speaker 2: a win win is where we do surgery, no complications,
Speaker 2: and we achieve the goal of surgery, either cure or
Speaker 2: prolongation of life. A lose win is where we do surgery,
Speaker 2: we still get the prolongation of life for cure, but
Speaker 2: the complications are such that you have a negative impact
Speaker 2: on your quality of life. A wind lose is where
Speaker 2: we do great surgery, no complications, but the biology of
Speaker 2: the chamber is such that it's just going to grow
Speaker 2: back again and you're still going to die, and we
Speaker 2: haven't achieved the goals of surgery. And a lose lose
Speaker 2: is where sadly you are worse after surgery and it
Speaker 2: still doesn't buy your time or cure you. And sadly
Speaker 2: some patients fall into the lose lose category. And that
Speaker 2: lose lose category is very, very dependent on the location
Speaker 2: of the chairman, the size of the tumor, and the
Speaker 2: biology of the tamer. And I say that to everyone,
Speaker 2: and so everyone is well informed about these potential outcomes.
Speaker 2: At the end of the day, I say to the look,
Speaker 2: there's only one thing I can promise you, And the
Speaker 2: one thing I promise you is that I will try
Speaker 2: my hardest. I'll treat you like a member of my
Speaker 2: own family. And that's the only thing I can promise you.
Speaker 2: I can't promise you good outcomes or bad outcomes or
Speaker 2: no complications, but I can promise you I'm going to
Speaker 2: try my hardest.
Speaker 1: The thing that intrigued me about the findings of that
Speaker 1: that Healthcare Complaints Commission was the composition of the of
Speaker 1: the commission. I mean, you've got a judge, You've got
Speaker 1: two neurosurgeons obviously, who either affiliates of yours or competitors
Speaker 1: of yours, and lay a lay member that's just a
Speaker 1: member of the public who has probably no Is that
Speaker 1: the concern that were they? Were they qualified enough to
Speaker 1: pass judgment on you?
Speaker 2: Absolutely not. It was it was. It was Kangaro Court, Ganti.
Speaker 2: It was terrible, and everyone that was witnessed it witnessed
Speaker 2: it was almost laughable. So the two neurosurgeons had never
Speaker 2: done the surgeries that I'd done. If you looked at
Speaker 2: their CVS, one of them had an impressive CV, but
Speaker 2: it was mostly spying surgeries and epilepsies surgery. And the
Speaker 2: other guy, I had never done a brainstem chimer in
Speaker 2: his life, had never done, had never published, at least
Speaker 2: on recurrent gleomers. They were not peers. They were people
Speaker 2: who were neurosurgeons elected by the Neurosurgical Fraternity to represent
Speaker 2: the standard of care of neurosurgery in Australia. And the
Speaker 2: expert witness that they called in as well was a
Speaker 2: guy that's got zero publications on brain chammers. It was
Speaker 2: ridiculous to you know, I don't mind being judged by
Speaker 2: peers who have the same experience as me, but these guys, well, firstly,
Speaker 2: you know, there's no one in the world who's done
Speaker 2: eleven thousand brain chammits. I'm sorry, but there's just no
Speaker 2: one that's done that. So to get someone at least
Speaker 2: who's done you know, thousands of brain jumors who specialized
Speaker 2: in brain chamans is what they should have done. But
Speaker 2: there's no one in Australia who could fit that bill.
Speaker 2: And not only that, they're my competitors. So it's like
Speaker 2: asking war Was to judge Coles. You know, you just
Speaker 2: can't do that. You've got to get someone who's going
Speaker 2: to be right from the front, as objective and as
Speaker 2: unbiased as you can. And both these guys had a
Speaker 2: record of being malevolent to me, you know, making comments
Speaker 2: about me in public forums, writing letters about me. And
Speaker 2: the reason we couldn't object to that is because when
Speaker 2: we said these guys are biased right from the start,
Speaker 2: they go, Okay, pick two neurosurgeons, aren't biased, and we
Speaker 2: couldn't and well we actually did, but they deemed those
Speaker 2: neurosursions to bias the other way. In other words, our
Speaker 2: friends of mine, they'd either trained with me or they'd
Speaker 2: attended one of my courses, so they were biased the
Speaker 2: other way. And you know, I do conceide that the
Speaker 2: ones that we picked would have been friendlier or more objective.
Speaker 1: So as long as your ban from performing at surgery
Speaker 1: in Australia, you need the approval of other eurosurgeons to do.
Speaker 1: Did I read that right?
Speaker 2: Look, everyone thinks that I'm banned from doing surgery. That
Speaker 2: is not the case. They found me guilty of professional
Speaker 2: misconduct on those two counts and the punishment was a
Speaker 2: reprimand so slap on the rest and that was all. However,
Speaker 2: they did say that you know, you keep bad records,
Speaker 2: and I were the first to admit that I hate
Speaker 2: writing up records and we need you to improve your
Speaker 2: record keeping. Tick, I'll do that, and we'd like you
Speaker 2: to get a second opinion before you do difficult cases
Speaker 2: like brand sim Timbers or recurrently Owmers, And I go, tick, absolutely,
Speaker 2: you know that's great. You know someone else can share
Speaker 2: the responsibility. But they knew that that second requirement would
Speaker 2: never be fulfilled because every neurosurgeon friendly or otherwise who
Speaker 2: I've asked to be my supervisor to give me that
Speaker 2: second opinion have rejected me. And they rejected me on
Speaker 2: very reasonable grounds, and that is that malpractice insurance companies
Speaker 2: have said, don't do it, that he should do this
Speaker 2: case and agree to it. If something goes wrong, you're
Speaker 2: going to be held liable. And if you say he
Speaker 2: can't do it and they die, you're going to be
Speaker 2: held libel. So and they knew that right from the start.
Speaker 2: They knew that no one was going to ever step
Speaker 2: up and be my supervisor or my second opinion. So yeah, So,
Speaker 2: in other words, the restrictions they put on me were
Speaker 2: so onerous that, yeah, I can't operate now. I can
Speaker 2: still operate on other cases where I don't need permission,
Speaker 2: But the trouble is that now that I'm so everyone
Speaker 2: knew before this that my colleagues were against me, and
Speaker 2: so everyone's known that for ages. But now to have
Speaker 2: the media against me as well, it puts me an
Speaker 2: extremely high risk of, you know, a high profile case
Speaker 2: that might go wrong. So now the hospitals are going, well,
Speaker 2: the hospital that I work that goes Charlie. You know,
Speaker 2: you've been great, You've been here for thirty years. You've
Speaker 2: brought a lot of money to our hospital. But now
Speaker 2: it's too high risk. The media against you, your colleagues
Speaker 2: are against you. You need supervisors. And they took my
Speaker 2: privileges away, and again I kind of can't blame them.
Speaker 2: So then I go, well, don't worry, I'll just go
Speaker 2: somewhere else and someone else will give me privileges. But
Speaker 2: everywhere I go, of course, the neurosurgeons have to who
Speaker 2: work at that hospital have to agree to bring me
Speaker 2: on board, and they all circle the wagons and keep
Speaker 2: me out. So now if I had a hospital that
Speaker 2: I could operate in in Australia, I could operate today.
Speaker 2: I still have my license and I still can do
Speaker 2: cases that aren't controversial. In other words, the majority of
Speaker 2: neurosurgery cases I can still do. It's only it's only
Speaker 2: those two particularly difficult cases where I need a supervisor.
Speaker 1: Doctor Charlie TiO is my guest, folks. We need to
Speaker 1: take a break back shortly. Welcome back to conversations. Doctor
Speaker 1: Charlie Teo is my guest, folks. If you just tuned
Speaker 1: in and explained the circumstances of the tribunal hearing that
Speaker 1: he had to go through the Healthcare Complaints Commission and
Speaker 1: at the outcome of that, he can't really operate in Australia.
Speaker 1: But he can operate, but it's a bit too complicated.
Speaker 1: I'm intrigued, though, Charlie. Let me just get this quote up.
Speaker 1: In an interview from Beijing, the Professor Ling Feng, who's
Speaker 1: the deputy director of the China International Neuroscience Institute, said
Speaker 1: she was not worried about the restrictions imposed on doctor Teo.
Speaker 1: She said, I took a careful look into what happened
Speaker 1: over there. I don't think it should be imputed that
Speaker 1: Charlie's neglect of care or passion for the patients. Instead,
Speaker 1: I thank Australia for the restrictions on Charlie, which gave
Speaker 1: me the opportunity to work with him. So you're doing
Speaker 1: a lot of your work overseas now.
Speaker 2: Obviously in China, the enforced retirement from the tribunal put
Speaker 2: me in a bad place. Cornse I don't know. I
Speaker 2: just I love neurosurgery. I still had the passion. I
Speaker 2: was still getting great results. I wanted to pass on
Speaker 2: the wood and disseminate the information before I retired, and
Speaker 2: it just wasn't the right time, and so I sought
Speaker 2: my refuge overseas. I guess I'm lucky enough to have
Speaker 2: had a fellowship program over the last forty years where
Speaker 2: I've trained neurosurgeons from almost every country in the world,
Speaker 2: and so I have friends and colleagues in almost every
Speaker 2: country in the world who were eager to have me
Speaker 2: operate and teach in their countries. And so I initially
Speaker 2: went to Spain where I taught to of the neurosurgeons
Speaker 2: and they were just lovely. And I was operating in
Speaker 2: an environment that was non hostile, and it was the
Speaker 2: first time I'd ever operated in a non hostile environment,
Speaker 2: and I must say it wasting. It was just beautiful
Speaker 2: where you know things are going to go wrong occasionally,
Speaker 2: but in Australia, when things went wrong, I was always
Speaker 2: worried that the knives would come out and the colleagues
Speaker 2: would see it as an opportunity to destroy me, whereas
Speaker 2: overseas it was exactly the opposite. They was supportive. They
Speaker 2: saw it as a teaching lesson. You know, if Charlie
Speaker 2: can get a complication like that, then you know anyone can.
Speaker 2: And it was a it's a beautiful environment to operate in.
Speaker 2: So from Spain I then went and you know, people
Speaker 2: heard that I wasn't operating in Australia and they invited me.
Speaker 2: So I've operated in God, it's like I can't even
Speaker 2: listen to them all India.
Speaker 1: All Peru, Spain, Germany, Nepal, three three and three in Nepaul, Brazil,
Speaker 1: South Africa, India, China. And then it's intriguing to see
Speaker 1: the outcome where the statistics have given me love successful
Speaker 1: come one hundred and forty five, a good outcome, twenty
Speaker 1: a fair outcome, thirty three, a fair outcome three one
Speaker 1: unfortunate death out of those operations you've done. Now, who
Speaker 1: compiles those figures? Are you know they peer compiled?
Speaker 2: Yes, So you have to keep a log book with
Speaker 2: all the surgeries you do, and you have to document it,
Speaker 2: and so all those cases have been well documented. We've
Speaker 2: got X rays before and after, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 2: And then of course they're endorsed by the Chairman of
Speaker 2: the Department, and so they're very accurate figures, they're legitimate,
Speaker 2: and they're actually not as good as my normal figures.
Speaker 2: So one death in you know, in one hundred or
Speaker 2: two hundred patients is unusual. But in my defense, the
Speaker 2: cases I'm doing are like the world's most difficult cases.
Speaker 2: When I operate in a country like Nepal and Cambodia,
Speaker 2: which I did last week, they don't give you the
Speaker 2: cases that they can do. They give you these really
Speaker 2: really difficult cases that no one is prepaired to operate on.
Speaker 2: So of those, I forget how many there are, but
Speaker 2: of those, say two hundred cases, easily one hundred and
Speaker 2: fifty of them are the world's most difficult cases that
Speaker 2: no one else will operate on. So I know those
Speaker 2: figures don't look good with one death out of one
Speaker 2: hundred and forty patients, because normally I have, you know,
Speaker 2: in my eleven thousand cases, I had twelve deaths. So
Speaker 2: the figures are much better than that, but these are
Speaker 2: really difficult cases that I've been operating on.
Speaker 1: I can't imagine what it would be like to operate
Speaker 1: in Nepal. What sort of conditions do you operate exactly?
Speaker 2: Exactly. You've got to adapt to the conditions that are available.
Speaker 2: Like Nepal was actually not too bad. But in Cambodia
Speaker 2: they don't have a drill, so you've got to use
Speaker 2: the old fashioned way of opening the skull with this
Speaker 2: wire called a jiggly saw. They don't have a headholder,
Speaker 2: which means that the patient, if they wake up, will
Speaker 2: move during the operation. Then it can be disastrous. So yeah,
Speaker 2: you have to make all these sessions about what you
Speaker 2: can and can't do because of the limitations in technology
Speaker 2: and equipment and expertise.
Speaker 1: Patients wake up during an operation.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if the antithesiologist is not on the ball, they are.
Speaker 2: And even if they are on the ball, even good
Speaker 2: ant caesiologists will have the occasional patient that will move
Speaker 2: during an operation because they absorb the anesthetic agents faster
Speaker 2: or are more efficiently than others. And so everyone's different,
Speaker 2: and it's not unusual for a patient to move a
Speaker 2: little bit during an operation as the anesthetic agents wear off.
Speaker 2: That's why you put them in three pin fixation. We
Speaker 2: put them in three pin fixations so that if they
Speaker 2: do have the move, the head doesn't move. And so
Speaker 2: while you're doing delicate neurosurgery where every millimeter counts, it
Speaker 2: doesn't matter, it doesn't affect you. Now, when you don't
Speaker 2: have a headholder, it means you've got to take the
Speaker 2: head down, which with a sticky tape and that's the
Speaker 2: best you can do. And so the patients have to
Speaker 2: be really, really obsessively anesthetized so they don't wake up
Speaker 2: and they don't move during the operation. But that of
Speaker 2: course introduces another lay of complexity because the more an
Speaker 2: aesthetic agency is, the more expensive it is for the patient.
Speaker 2: And remember these patients are paying for their own anesthetic agents,
Speaker 2: and it means they wake up less quickly, and you
Speaker 2: know all these other all these other potential complications that
Speaker 2: you've got a factor in when you operate in a
Speaker 2: developing country.
Speaker 1: What is an operation like that cost, Charlie.
Speaker 2: Yes, So if it's a surgery in a developing country
Speaker 2: and I'm doing it to teach the local neurosurgeons, of
Speaker 2: course it's all pro bono, so I don't charge a
Speaker 2: patient anything, and you know that's usually done in a
Speaker 2: public hospital, so they don't pay anything, or they pay
Speaker 2: a little bit. If it's a private patient who's insisted
Speaker 2: on meeting the operation, then I charge them a fee,
Speaker 2: plus the hospital charges them a fee, and that fee
Speaker 2: can vary according to which country you're in. The total
Speaker 2: fee can vary from as little as twelve thousand dollars
Speaker 2: in some countries, so as much as one hundred thousand
Speaker 2: dollars in other countries. So yeah, it's not cheap, but
Speaker 2: it's very comparable and in most cases cheaper than Australia.
Speaker 2: So in Australia, if a patient wanted me to operate
Speaker 2: privately and they didn't have private health insurance, the total
Speaker 2: bill would end up being somewhere between eighty and one
Speaker 2: hundred thousand dollars. Again, everyone accused me of taking that
Speaker 2: hundred thousand dollars, which is ridiculous because everyone knows that
Speaker 2: you've got to pay the hospital as well. But you know,
Speaker 2: in Spain, for example, it's twenty thousand dollars cheaper than that.
Speaker 2: In China it's thirty forty thousand dollars cheaper than that,
Speaker 2: so it really does depend on which country you're operating in.
Speaker 1: Doctor Charlie Teo as my guest, folks, something I'm intrigued
Speaker 1: about his journey from where he came to where he
Speaker 1: is now, so we'll talk about that after the break
Speaker 1: back shortly. Welcome back everybody. If you just tuned in
Speaker 1: with speaking to doctor Charlie TiO, one of the most
Speaker 1: eminent neurosurgeons in the world, renowned for his skill, not
Speaker 1: without his controversy. Charlie, I'm always intrigued in the journey.
Speaker 1: I mean, you're obviously of Asian extraction. Can you tell
Speaker 1: us about mum and dad in your early days?
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, you know, it is quite a checkered upbringing
Speaker 2: of past. But in summary, so both parents Chinese from Singapore,
Speaker 2: immigrated to Australia to do medicine. My father was an
Speaker 2: obstrician gynecologist. Before that he was a GP. My mum
Speaker 2: was a nurse. Not a wealthy sort of background. We
Speaker 2: did it hard at first.
Speaker 1: Were you born when they immigrated?
Speaker 2: No, I was born here. Okay, yeah, yeah, so they immigrated,
Speaker 2: I was born here and the first say ten years
Speaker 2: of my life was pretty hard. Little fire Row house,
Speaker 2: I bought Bomby sort of car, and I can just
Speaker 2: remember it wasn't the most salubrious situation. But then they
Speaker 2: sent me to a private school, so things obviously got better.
Speaker 2: I went to Trinity Grammar initially, and then I went
Speaker 2: to Scott's College. From there, I decided I wanted to
Speaker 2: be a motor mechanic. I chose an apprenticeship, and then
Speaker 2: I realized that it wasn't intellectually stimulating as I wanted,
Speaker 2: so I actually got the march again in medicine, got
Speaker 2: into medicine, and the rest is history.
Speaker 1: Well, you just skipped over too quickly. Do you have
Speaker 1: any connection and did your mother and father maintain a
Speaker 1: connection with Singapore, given that's where they were born.
Speaker 2: You know, it was in the days, Cornsey, that and
Speaker 2: most of your listeners won't be of this vintage, but
Speaker 2: it was in the days that the population of the
Speaker 2: colonies wanted to be more English than the English, and
Speaker 2: that's why a lot of the Chinese called their children
Speaker 2: very very English names like Winston and Hamilton and Charles,
Speaker 2: and I was called Charles after Prince Charles. My mother
Speaker 2: was Elizabeth, my father was Philip. My sisters ann so
Speaker 2: where you can't get more anglophilic than that. So no,
Speaker 2: they didn't really reject their heritage, but they certainly didn't
Speaker 2: want me to be Chinese. They wanted me to be
Speaker 2: more English and more Australian than them, So you know,
Speaker 2: they chose not to speak Chinese in front of me,
Speaker 2: so I would never speak with a Chinese accent. They
Speaker 2: sent me to a greater public school where they wanted
Speaker 2: me to row in the head of the river and
Speaker 2: played rugby, and so all those very English things were
Speaker 2: encouraged now household, rather than discourage.
Speaker 1: Did you row? Did you play rugby?
Speaker 2: I did row? I wrote in the Social four, because
Speaker 2: I was never big enough or strong enough to be
Speaker 2: in a competitive four or competitive eight. I played rugby,
Speaker 2: and I was very good when I was young, but
Speaker 2: then everyone got bigger than me and faster than me,
Speaker 2: and so by the time I finished playing rugby, like
Speaker 2: I was in the eleven a's and ten a's and
Speaker 2: twelve a's and then the thirteen b's and then the
Speaker 2: fourteen c's and then the fifteen d's, and so by
Speaker 2: the time I got to my senior years, that's not true.
Speaker 2: I actually played in the seconds for a game I
Speaker 2: never played in the first and yeah, I loved rugby,
Speaker 2: so I played it right up until my HC.
Speaker 1: Did you follow a team?
Speaker 2: Not really? I mean I went to New South Wales
Speaker 2: University where I played rugby socially again when I got there,
Speaker 2: and I guess I followed the New South Wales University team.
Speaker 2: But and I lived in the eastern suburbs, I like
Speaker 2: these in Sydney, But no, I never followed, never really
Speaker 2: followed a team.
Speaker 1: Were you discriminated against much because of your Chinese heritage?
Speaker 2: My god, yes it wasn't. It wasn't a single day
Speaker 2: in my life that I wasn't mocked and jeered for
Speaker 2: being Chinese, Not a single day as a child. Every
Speaker 2: time we went to a shopping center, every time we
Speaker 2: went to school, every time we sat in the car
Speaker 2: and went past someone who someone would mock or jeer.
Speaker 2: You know, slanty eyes, ching chong chinaman, yellow yellow belly,
Speaker 2: I mean, you name it. And yeah, it was not
Speaker 2: a single day that I wasn't targeted for being Asian.
Speaker 1: How did you deal with that?
Speaker 2: Well, you know, you know what you know, and I
Speaker 2: didn't know any better. I just thought, you know, I
Speaker 2: used to cry at night and just hope that I
Speaker 2: would turn white the next day. And and yeah, you
Speaker 2: just had the live with it. I mean that was
Speaker 2: just the way it was in those days.
Speaker 1: Was there a time you emerged from that darkness?
Speaker 2: Well, I was never immerged in darkness. I mean, it
Speaker 2: didn't make me melancholic, it didn't make me angry. It
Speaker 2: just I just accepted it as been. You know, that's
Speaker 2: what you've got to accept when you live in a
Speaker 2: white country.
Speaker 1: But if you're crying it, if you're crying at night,
Speaker 1: you're sad.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, all sad. But and I'd try and I'd
Speaker 2: prayed for me to change my appearance. But but you
Speaker 2: know that's only at night, and then the next day
Speaker 2: you get up and you fate the fire again.
Speaker 1: Well, there must have been a time that changed.
Speaker 2: I guess it changed when I became a black belt
Speaker 2: in karate. So I tried to So you either accept
Speaker 2: it or you don't accept it. And if you don't
Speaker 2: accept it, then you either become melancholic or you become angry.
Speaker 2: And so I didn't like it, and I didn't and
Speaker 2: I was very Again I was going to say I
Speaker 2: was pugilistic wasn't pugilistic. I mean, I'm not a pugilistic
Speaker 2: sort of person. I don't like Biffo, but when I
Speaker 2: get into Biffo, I really like it. And so you know,
Speaker 2: if you get to my sort of threshold, then yeah,
Speaker 2: and that's my entire life has been like that. You know,
Speaker 2: I've been targeted by the neurosurgical fraternity for years and
Speaker 2: you know, bring it on. I used to say, bring
Speaker 2: it on. It wasn't until the the playing fields became
Speaker 2: an even that I lost. But I still tried to
Speaker 2: fight it. And that came from my childhood. You know.
Speaker 2: I rather than being bullied and being beaten up, I
Speaker 2: go that or sorry, I go, well, I'm gonna I'm
Speaker 2: going to fight back. And I was little, and so
Speaker 2: I tried bulking up. So I've never talked to eevile
Speaker 2: this stuff. It sounds a bit embarrassing, but anyway, I
Speaker 2: tried to bulk up. So the back of the magazines
Speaker 2: in those days there was always ads by Charles Atlas,
Speaker 2: you remember them, and Bullworker, Remember the Bullworker. I bought
Speaker 2: a Bullworker. I bought all the supplements of Charles Atlas,
Speaker 2: A drank and ate and I went to town. So
Speaker 2: I'd have all these terrible supplements every day, and they were,
Speaker 2: you know, molasses, and I don't know what they were,
Speaker 2: but they tasted terrible. But I thought, I'm going to
Speaker 2: bulk up. So I bought the Charles Atlas stuff. I
Speaker 2: bought a bullworker. I worked the bullworker every day, and
Speaker 2: I could never bulk up. I just didn't have the
Speaker 2: body habitats and I didn't have the genes. So then
Speaker 2: I thought, well, if I can't bulk up, and if
Speaker 2: I can't be a muscleman, then I need to get skills.
Speaker 2: So then I took up karate, and karate defined my life.
Speaker 2: It was just a game changer. So if you're asking me,
Speaker 2: when did a change A change? Because I immersed myself
Speaker 2: in karate, it became my entire life. I'd train every day.
Speaker 2: I bought a punching bag. I watched every Bruce Lee movie.
Speaker 2: I you know, would punch a punching bag hundreds of times,
Speaker 2: kick it hundreds of times. I got my black belt.
Speaker 2: I competed, and if anyone picked on me, it was like,
Speaker 2: bring it on. And I really enjoyed the biffo because
Speaker 2: I'd be able to beat big guys. I became a
Speaker 2: bouncer at the university, and I used to bounce at
Speaker 2: all the balls and I'd take on ten twenty guys
Speaker 2: at once and I'd come out on top. And then
Speaker 2: I thought, well, this is great. So then I became
Speaker 2: a bouncer at Center Point Tavern. And so when everyone
Speaker 2: else was earning three dollars fifty an hour, I was
Speaker 2: earning ten dollars an hour as a bouncer at Center
Speaker 2: Point Tavern. And I did that all through university, and yeah,
Speaker 2: I really enjoyed it. And so that's I guess that's
Speaker 2: when things changed. When I took up karate. By the way,
Speaker 2: my schoolwork improved. I was in the debating team, and
Speaker 2: my debating improved my school true because I had this
Speaker 2: real confidence about me. It's like, you know, once you're
Speaker 2: confident with one thing, it has this knock on effect.
Speaker 2: And I became very, very confident after that.
Speaker 1: Doctor Charlie Teo as my guest, Folks back after the break,
Speaker 1: Charlie Teo as my guest on Conversation Today, Doctor Charlie Teo,
Speaker 1: we learned things about him we probably didn't know before.
Speaker 1: He was a black belt in karate and having been
Speaker 1: persecuted in Tea so often because of his Asian heritage.
Speaker 1: He took up karate became very proficient at it. I
Speaker 1: loved getting in fights, was a bouncer at center point.
Speaker 1: It seems to me that that would have been counterproductive
Speaker 1: to your medical studies. But it's the other way around.
Speaker 2: Look, that added confidence made me a little bit more
Speaker 2: confident when it came to public speaking, for example, and debating.
Speaker 2: But it also had a positive effect of my schoolwork
Speaker 2: and my studies for some reason. I'm not sure why,
Speaker 2: but it did. But no, it wasn't all together positive.
Speaker 2: I mean, when people found out that I was a
Speaker 2: bouncer and that I got into a bit of biffo,
Speaker 2: it didn't go well. And you know, I failed my
Speaker 2: neurosurgery exam not once, not twice, but three times. And
Speaker 2: on the third occasion, my mentor sat me down and goes, Charlie,
Speaker 2: we need to talk. I go, okay, yeah, let's talk.
Speaker 2: He goes, look the college a little bit upset with you.
Speaker 2: I go, yeah, okay, why did I fail the pathology part?
Speaker 2: No you pass that? Did I fail the short cases
Speaker 2: or the long cases? No? No, you pass that. I go, well,
Speaker 2: what did I fail? And he took Texas glasses off
Speaker 2: and he sits me down and goes, Charlie, we just
Speaker 2: don't like the way you are portraying yourself. You call
Speaker 2: people by their first name, and you get them to
Speaker 2: call you by your first name, and you just can't
Speaker 2: do that. You go out partying every night, and you
Speaker 2: go clubbing until you know, one two o'clock in the morning,
Speaker 2: you just can't do that. You ride a motorbike, and
Speaker 2: neurosurgeons do not ride motorbikes. You know, you're a black
Speaker 2: belt in karate, you work as a bouncer. That's just
Speaker 2: not what neurosurgeons do. And what we would like you
Speaker 2: to do is, you know, Charlie's about time you got married,
Speaker 2: settled down, buy a car, get rid of the motorbike,
Speaker 2: and you know, just become and call people. Don't get
Speaker 2: people to call you by your first name. What are
Speaker 2: they supposed to call you doctor Teo or mister Teo? Yeah,
Speaker 2: And I go, okay, well that's what it takes to
Speaker 2: pass the exam. Then you know, I'll change, And I
Speaker 2: changed past the exam and then I went back to bed.
Speaker 2: I got rid of the car and board a motorbike again.
Speaker 1: You got married and had four kids.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, no, no, no, I married a beautiful lady
Speaker 2: who was, you know, just an amazing wife, an amazing,
Speaker 2: amazing mother. I just wasn't the best husband. It's a
Speaker 2: whole nother story. You know, I'm a great neurosurgeon, but
Speaker 2: I'm a you know, I wasn't the best husband. So
Speaker 2: unfortunately our marriage ended about six years ago. Eight years ago.
Speaker 1: You got four daughters, have you know?
Speaker 2: Because I was a great father and I love my
Speaker 2: girls dearly. They love me dearly, and thankfully the girls
Speaker 2: are still very much a part of my life, and
Speaker 2: I'm part of their lives, and it's a very rewarding
Speaker 2: sort of relationship with them.
Speaker 1: Did they pursue medicine as you did?
Speaker 2: I know two of them sort of inherited my sort
Speaker 2: of empathy. I guess. One of them is the most
Speaker 2: empathetic person I know, and she's a dog She loves
Speaker 2: animals and she's a dog trainer, dog psychologist, and she's amazing.
Speaker 2: She's like a dog whisperer. The other one went into business,
Speaker 2: but I think she's the human factor in business. And
Speaker 2: she now runs a clinic for mental health and she
Speaker 2: just loves the interaction with the patients. I mean, she
Speaker 2: likes the business side as well, and she's very good
Speaker 2: at it, but she just loves talking to the patients
Speaker 2: as well. So I think those two probably inherited that
Speaker 2: sort of that gene from me.
Speaker 1: There's a real sadness to your profession. And when you're
Speaker 1: dealing with people with brain cancer, because I've heard you
Speaker 1: say it's not curable, can you come back to some
Speaker 1: sort of stark reality and give us an explanation of
Speaker 1: that when you're dealing with people who have those symptoms
Speaker 1: and that disease.
Speaker 2: And it is sad, okay. So the big picture is
Speaker 2: that if you do brainchim is, sadly, the majority of
Speaker 2: brain tim is a malignant in other words, brain cancer Sadly,
Speaker 2: they're more common than the benign ones or the low
Speaker 2: grade ones. So that means most of your patients, if
Speaker 2: your brain tumor patients, are going to die from their disease. Now,
Speaker 2: unlike most other cancers, where there have been huge strides
Speaker 2: in the treatment of these cancers such that the majority
Speaker 2: of patients survive, the same can't be said for brain cancer.
Speaker 2: Now you're probably thinking, well, why not and the answer
Speaker 2: is probably multifactorial. It's difficult to know why we haven't
Speaker 2: made the same advances in brain cancers we have with
Speaker 2: other cancers. But it goes something like this, because everyone
Speaker 2: dies from brain cancer. Most doctors have a very nearalistic,
Speaker 2: fatalistic approach to it. They're going to die, so why
Speaker 2: would we even try? Well, the worst thing about that
Speaker 2: is that, of course it's a self perpetuating situation where
Speaker 2: you know it's a self fulfilling prophecy. If you don't try,
Speaker 2: then of course they're going to die, and so you
Speaker 2: never make advances. The second thing is that brain cancer
Speaker 2: is incredibly heterogeneous, so they say it's like having thirty
Speaker 2: cancers in one because a lot of the other advances
Speaker 2: in cancer treatment is big because they've found some target
Speaker 2: and it's called targeted therapy or immunotherapy. They require the
Speaker 2: tumor to have a common denominator, a common gene, a
Speaker 2: common protein on the cell membrane, or something that they
Speaker 2: can target, and that means that those tumors are mostly homogeneous.
Speaker 2: In other words, all the cells look the same and
Speaker 2: behave the same When you've got a heterogeneous guman like
Speaker 2: brain cancer, you might find a target, but that target
Speaker 2: will only kill a small percentage of the tumor. And
Speaker 2: so that's one bad thing about brain cancer. The other
Speaker 2: thing about brain cancer is that it's protected by I
Speaker 2: think called the blood brain barrier. So the blood brain
Speaker 2: barrier came around because the brain is the most important
Speaker 2: organ in the body, and whoever made our beautiful body
Speaker 2: said that we need to have extra protection to the brain,
Speaker 2: and we need to protect it from toxins and large
Speaker 2: molecules that might be damaging to the brain cells. So
Speaker 2: they designed a blood brain barrier. Well, the bad thing
Speaker 2: about the blood brain barrier is, yes, it keeps out toxins,
Speaker 2: but what are chemotherapy agents? Said toxins, And so most
Speaker 2: chemotherapies that have been effective against other cancers can't be
Speaker 2: used in brain cans because they don't cross the blood
Speaker 2: brain barrier. Okay, what's the next bad thing. The next
Speaker 2: bad thing is that when you have cancer somewhere else,
Speaker 2: like bowel cancer, you can surge. You can be very
Speaker 2: very curative because you can be extra aggressive and you
Speaker 2: can take out the cancer and a normal bit of
Speaker 2: bowel above and a normal bit of bowel below, you
Speaker 2: can do the same thing with lunk cancer. You can
Speaker 2: do the same thing with skin cancer, and that's called
Speaker 2: a super marginal resection, where you take out the cancer
Speaker 2: plus some normal tissue. Well, the brain is so eloquent
Speaker 2: a structure that if you try and take out brain
Speaker 2: cancer plus some normal tissue, you're going to get some
Speaker 2: pretty devastating outcomes because that normal tissue has some sort
Speaker 2: of function. Now that function might be very subtle, and
Speaker 2: we do do super marginal resections of brain cancers, but
Speaker 2: only if it's in an area where you can take
Speaker 2: out some normal tissue and not have a devastating outcome.
Speaker 2: But if your tumor is close to the motors strip,
Speaker 2: for example, then taking out normal tissue is going to
Speaker 2: paralyze them completely down one side of their body. And
Speaker 2: you know people aren't king to accept that. So and
Speaker 2: then I can keep going. I can keep talking. It's
Speaker 2: brain cancer is incredibly challenging and because of the nearism
Speaker 2: associated with it, no one until I came back to
Speaker 2: Australia was concentrating on brain cancer. When I came back
Speaker 2: from overseas, I was totally flabbergacid to hear that there
Speaker 2: were no major NGOs or government bodies that were funding
Speaker 2: brain cancer research. It was terrible and that's why I
Speaker 2: decided to start the Cure for Life Foundation back in
Speaker 2: two thousand and that morphed into the Cure Brain Cancer Foundation,
Speaker 2: and that morphed into the Charlie Teo Foundation. And I'm
Speaker 2: proud to say that I've raised over fifty five million
Speaker 2: dollars over that period. And without fifty five million dollars,
Speaker 2: we funded amazing projects in Australia and overseas, and some
Speaker 2: of those projects have come up with treatments that were
Speaker 2: never going to be found until we put the money
Speaker 2: in the effort into research. I was lucky enough to
Speaker 2: be on a panel last night with a research scientist
Speaker 2: called Matt Dunn who works out a Newcastle in New
Speaker 2: South Wales and he personally was affected by brain cancer.
Speaker 2: His daughter die from brain cancer and he has now
Speaker 2: identified some agents that potentially could treat a significant percentage
Speaker 2: of children with brain cancer very effectively. And again we
Speaker 2: funded him. Another foundation called the Little Leagues Foundation funded
Speaker 2: him and with that funding he's made a significant change.
Speaker 2: And so that's what we need. We need awareness. Awareness
Speaker 2: will lead to funding, Funding will lead through answers and
Speaker 2: hopefully we can turn the tables on brain cancer. In
Speaker 2: the next few years. We can find cures for these
Speaker 2: incurable cancers.
Speaker 1: And that's what your foundation does, and people can find
Speaker 1: your foundation just your Charlie Chair Foundation and support. I've
Speaker 1: been at functions where you've been so well supported. But
Speaker 1: can we finish? We hear so much negativity and so
Speaker 1: much sadness around the work that you do. Can we
Speaker 1: finish with a happy story? I just have a few
Speaker 1: of those.
Speaker 2: Ah, we can, Cornsey. But look, it's too sad. It's
Speaker 2: too sad. I mean, really, at the end of the day,
Speaker 2: what's happened. What's happened is that you know this is
Speaker 2: going to sound incredibly pompous and arrogant, but you know
Speaker 2: I'm a good neurosurgeon and I had a good track record,
Speaker 2: and I've done more brain timers than anyone in Australia
Speaker 2: and possibly anyone in the world. And I can't even
Speaker 2: operate on fellow Australians. I mean, there's nothing happy about that, Cornsey.
Speaker 2: It's I'm happy, so I don't worry. I'm happy that
Speaker 2: I'm still saving lives overseas and I'm doing what I
Speaker 2: love and I'm using my experience to teach others. And
Speaker 2: I'm really happy about that because it's given me good
Speaker 2: mental health and I've got purpose still and it's great,
Speaker 2: and you know, and China have embraced me, and I'm
Speaker 2: operating on all these patients in China from all around China,
Speaker 2: and they're building me a three story building of a
Speaker 2: teaching building so I can teach neurosurgeons. And so don't worry.
Speaker 2: I'm okay, but I can't. I get sad and frustrated
Speaker 2: and angry every time I come back to Australia and
Speaker 2: I have to consult and see see all these all
Speaker 2: these Australians, good people not being able to get access
Speaker 2: to to me and to and other neurosurgeons. You can't
Speaker 2: learn from me. And there's one other bad thing, Conzi,
Speaker 2: and that is that because of what's happened to me,
Speaker 2: the whole ethos of Australian medicine has changed. I think.
Speaker 2: And you know, again, people going, I don't big note yourself,
Speaker 2: but but I think it has because I've seen it.
Speaker 2: I've witnessed it. And so what's happened is that you
Speaker 2: know the people who have been doctors aving faced with
Speaker 2: a challenging situation where they have to step outside the box,
Speaker 2: step out of their comfort zone, do high risk treatments
Speaker 2: like high risk or high risk surgery. They're going if
Speaker 2: they can destroy Charlie Teo, and really, all Charlie Teo
Speaker 2: did was operate on patients that he was told that
Speaker 2: others wouldn't operate on, and he was overly optimistic in
Speaker 2: his consent, then they can destroy anyone. So why would
Speaker 2: we put ourselves at risk. I'm not going to take
Speaker 2: that tumor out. I'm just going to buy upset or
Speaker 2: I'm not going to do one hundred percent reception. I'm
Speaker 2: going to do a fifty percent reception so I don't
Speaker 2: cause any complications. So I don't put myself in the
Speaker 2: same precarious situation that he put himself in. I'm not
Speaker 2: going to push the envelope. I'm not going to contend
Speaker 2: with my colleagues. I'm not going to give contrary second opinions.
Speaker 2: I'm going to toe the party line. I'm going to
Speaker 2: I'm going to not put my patients at risk and
Speaker 2: therefore not put myself at risk, and the whole level
Speaker 2: of medicine will be adverse the effected because medicine is
Speaker 2: dependent on pioneers and risk takers who are willing to
Speaker 2: challenge the status quo to advance a specialty. And now
Speaker 2: Charlie Teo, who was the basically the epitome of that
Speaker 2: sort of person pushing the envelope, challenging the status quo,
Speaker 2: getting bad cases as a result of it. You know,
Speaker 2: people suffering occasional people are suffering for it. Now that
Speaker 2: person has been destroyed by the system, and that sends
Speaker 2: a very clear message to doctors do not do what
Speaker 2: he did. Cherry Cornsey, I know you wanted a positive note,
Speaker 2: but I am saddened by it.
Speaker 1: You know you've made your point, Charlie. People can go
Speaker 1: to your foundation, the website and Charlie Teo Foundation, and
Speaker 1: as I have been meeting Charlie personally and hear him speak,
Speaker 1: hearing his patients speak, you will be inspired. Charlie Tea,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for your time.