One of Victoria’s most prolific circumcision doctors has been banned from performing the procedure by Australia’s healthcare watchdog.
The Medical Board of Australia took the emergency measure against Melbourne doctor Hershel Goldman earlier this month.
“The practitioner must not perform circumcisions,” reads a note from the Medical Board of Australia on Dr Goldman’s listing on the public register of practitioners.
Goldman, who previously told The Age he had performed 400 circumcisions a year, is appealing against the restrictions at the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal, which heard the matter on Thursday. The tribunal reserved its decision.


A suppression order has been issued to seal the tribunal’s file and protect the identities of patients, notifiers and witnesses.
A spokeswoman for the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency and National Boards said confidentiality laws prevented it from commenting on individual cases other than what was on the public record.....
He has also performed the procedure in private homes....
in 2004, Goldman described himself as mohel, which is a person who performs the Jewish rite of circumcision when a boy is eight days old....
It states that he does not perform the procedure on patients over four months old.....
“About five years ago, I was doing mostly Jewish boys. Nobody else was interested in circumcision,” he said.
“But, just in the last 12 months I’ve been doing more and more non-religious circumcisions. ... I’m doing Christians, Muslims, everyone. I don’t discriminate, I’m an equal-opportunity mohel.”

Top circumcision doctor is banned from performing the operations after amputating two little boys' penises, tribunal hears

Dr Hershel Goldman's licence was restricted by the Medical Board of
Australia on April 4 - preventing him from performing the procedure he
has done on more than 20,000 occasions.

He is fighting the ban at the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT), which heard on Thursday that one child was so seriously injured they required a blood transfusion and the other is potentially permanently disfigured....

In the second incident it is alleged Dr Goldman did not realise he had amputated the boy's penis.
His parents were later changing the boy's nappy when they noticed something was not right and went to the hospital where the child required a blood transfusion.
Dr Goldman's lawyer told the tribunal he had only amputated the tip of the second boy's penis, however, the child's mother wrote to the tribunal alleging it had been 'amputated at the base'.

He said Dr Goldman would be financially ruined if he could not continue his business, which he has been building for decades

Dr Goldman's lawyer told the tribunal he had only amputated the tip of the second boy's penis

A prolific circumcision doctor has lost his battle to perform operations while he appeals a medical board decision, as new details emerge about one of his newborn patients suffering an “amputation or partial amputation” of his penis and another needing a blood transfusion

He argued he would suffer a “devastating financial impact” if he was banned from performing circumcisions. It would also have a detrimental impact on the Jewish and non-Jewish community, as half his clients were Muslim, he said.