ED doctor Kim Mullaley has medical licence suspended for three years after inappropriate touching of patient

A senior emergency doctor who inappropriately touched a vulnerable young patient is banned from practising until at least 2028 after his medical licence was suspended. Kim Mullaley, who until recently was an ED consultant at Joondalup Health Campus, must also cough up $175,000 to contribute to the Medical Board of Australia’s legal costs. It follows shock findings handed down by the State Administrative Tribunal in September 2025 that Dr Mullaley had engaged in professional misconduct after he sexually touched an 18-year-old woman’s vulva under the guise of a medical exam in 2016. He had continued working at JHC in the years following the incident, but was later stood down by the Ramsay-operated hospital pending investigation following the initial findings. A Ramsay spokeswoman confirmed in late September he was no longer an employee of the hospital. Dr Mullaley was a consultant at JHC’s ED when he undertook a physical exam of the vulnerable young woman without a chaperone present, against hospital policy. The woman had been receiving inpatient treatment for an eating disorder at Hollywood Private Hospital, also a Ramsay facility, when she was transferred to JHC for her own safety. She arrived via ambulance and under police escort, sedated with a cocktail of antipsychotic and benzodiazepine drugs. The young woman had been medically cleared before admission to JHC’s mental health unit. It’s during this assessment that Dr Mullaley allegedly slid his right hand underneath her underwear and placed his hand on her vulva, according to the woman’s statement to police in 2017. Dr Mullaley denies the sexual touching ever occurred, but gave evidence that he remembered the colours and brand of the young patient’s underwear. He does not dispute the absence of a chaperone despite hospital policy. The tribunal’s latest findings, published this week, dealt with whether Dr Mullaley’s registration should be cancelled or suspended, as well as any costs for which he should foot the bill. The tribunal said his conduct “represents a very serious departure from acceptable standards” and that any penalty should reflect its severity. “It involves a gross breach of trust by a doctor whose task it was to physically examine a young woman who was, on her presentation, very vulnerable,” it said. When weighing up the appropriate action, the tribunal acknowledged Dr Mullaley had no disciplinary history pre-dating the 2016 misconduct and no further allegations or findings in the almost 10 years since it occurred. “In our view the conduct can be properly described as an isolated incident,” it said. “The only cause for caution in making that finding is the (medical) board’s submission that Dr Mullaley has failed to demonstrate either insight or remorse.” While the medical board proposed a four to five-year suspension, Dr Mullaley argued his suspension should not be any longer than three years, due to the specialist nature of his work. An absence of three years or more means emergency doctors must complete a formal re-entry program before they can return to work, per the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine’s policy on returning to practice. Absences between one and three years requires the completion of continuing professional development activities. Dr Mullaley argued a penalty of three years or more would cause him to “face challenges on resuming practice over and above those faced by practitioners in other disciplines”. The tribunal dismissed this, saying it’s “not satisfied that the burden imposed by the ACEM policy is so great as to warrant reducing any period of suspension”. Dr Mullaley was reprimanded and his medical licence suspended for three years, backdated to the initial September 2025 findings. His registration will be suspended until September 16, 2028. He was ordered to pay $175,000 towards the medical board’s more than $277,000 in legal costs. Sexual Assault Resource Centre 1800 199 888 Lifeline 13 11 14 headspace 1800 650 890