By Selina Lum
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A DOCTOR who has gone to court to get back $236,500 over a soured business deal with several other doctors has made allegations of misconduct against some of them.

Dr Ng Boon Ching, a general practitioner who has focused on aesthetic medicine for 20 years, entered a business venture with six other doctors around March 2005.

The practice, CLAAS Medical Centre, provided aesthetic procedures through its clinics at Chinatown Point and OUB Centre.

Dr Ng alleged that the turning point of the group's business relationship came with the extra-marital affair between Dr Gerard Tan Eng Choon, whom he labelled a 'skirt chaser', and a staff nurse in August 2006.

He also claimed that Dr Tan and Dr Joseph Soh Liang had carried out eye-bag surgery without the necessary experience and insurance coverage.

Additionally, he complained that Dr Wong Weng Hong had withheld his status as a director and shareholder of a competing medical group from the CLAAS team.

He also accused Dr Wong, Dr Liew Kou Chuen and Dr Tan Yi Ryh of 'not doing enough to pull their weight to meet their monthly revenue targets'.

Dr Ng, who has since quit CLAAS, is now back to being the sole proprietor of his own clinic.

He is among the pioneer batch of doctors here trained in the use of medical lasers. Apart from the 'aesthetic medical practice' he ran before joining CLAAS, he also ran a business selling lasers and intense pulsed light machines to other doctors.

After being on his own for 20 years, he decided to expand his practice and met the group of doctors who had already set up CLAAS.

He sold his businesses to CLAAS for $3.2 million and, in return, got a 20 per cent stake in the company.

Dr Ng said that after becoming a shareholder and director of CLAAS, he made a total of $286,500 in interest-free loans to the company.

But by mid-2006, the relationship among the doctors had become tense, and several of them 'appeared to be marching to a different beat from the rest of us', he said.

In August 2006, he was shocked and disappointed to learn that Dr Gerard Tan was openly having an affair with a staff nurse. This 'lapse of professionalism' affected staff morale, he said.

He confronted Dr Tan and asked for a breakdown of staff salaries to look into complaints that he had favoured that nurse over others.

Dr Tan sacked the nurse and stepped down as chairman of the board but remained as a director. He also e-mailed the directors and staff, confessing and apologising for the affair.

But Dr Ng said that after this, it became clear to him that none of the other doctors was interested in developing the practice; everyone seemed more interested in cashing out to strike out on his own.

Dr Ng sold his stake in March last year because he was fed up with the 'hypocrisy and factional struggles' among the business partners.

He then demanded that the loans he made to the company be returned, but claimed he received only $50,000. He is thus filing suit to get back the rest.

CLAAS, which is counter-suing him for breaching its non-competition clause, says any money payable should be offset against the $1 million it is seeking from him.

The non-competition clause in Dr Ng's contract bars him from joining a competing business for three years upon leaving CLAAS.

selinal@sph.com.sg

This article was first published in The Straits Times on July 22, 2008.