Duty to Warn

THE INSIDE STORY OF THE DR MUNJED AL MUDERIS DEFAMATION TRIAL - a brilliantly told testament to the power of investigative journalism to hold institutions and individuals accountable

It all started when a daughter asked her father 'Are there any risks?'.

Investigative journalist Charlotte Grieve had a very personal reason to be interested in celebrated orthopaedic surgeon Dr Munjed Al Muderis. Her father had lost his leg almost sixty years before a chance meeting with Dr Al Muderis, who raised concerns about her father's ongoing mobility. The famous doctor told him that osseointegration surgery would keep him out of a wheelchair. Her mother suggested a second opinion. The collision of the personal and professional would spark an investigation that led to a $20 million defamation trial.

Charlotte uncovered serious concerns about the doctor's surgical practice and evidence that he routinely failed to adequately inform patients of the risks involved in his signature procedure. Doctors have a duty of care, but they also legally have a duty to warn. It means that they must warn patients of any risks. When that is not done, vulnerable people have to live with the consequences.

Dr Al Muderis would go on to spend millions trying to prevent Charlotte from warning the public about his failures. Though pressured to drop her investigation, Charlotte stood firm. In the defamation trial, thirty-five of his patients, dozens of doctors, surgeons and health professionals would take the stand, defending their stories, their lives, their truths.

Compelling and masterfully written, Duty to Warn is the inside story of a young journalist fighting to uncover the facts whilst coming up against a powerful individual determined to stop her. It delivers a rare window into legal and ethical reckoning in medicine and in journalism. Ultimately, it is a story about the duty to warn, what it means, and the catastrophic outcomes that can ensue when a doctor fails to uphold their ethical responsibilities.

About the Author

Charlotte Grieve is an award-winning investigative journalist with The Age and Sydney Morning Herald. She joined the newspaper as a cadet in 2018 and worked for two years as a national business journalist, during which she was twice awarded Citi Young Business Journalist of the Year in 2022 and 2023. She joined The Age's investigations team in 2022 and has since been awarded two Quill Awards, highly commended for the Grant Hattam Quill for Investigative Journalism and nominated for a Walkley Mid-Year Prize for Environment Reporting.

She was awarded the Michael Gordon fellowship in both 2021 and 2023 where she travelled to the outback to report regional investigations with an environmental focus. She has producer credits for five documentaries with 60 Minutes, on topics ranging from international fraudsters to the ultra-conservative infiltration of the Victorian Liberals.