Growlife Medical and the rise of a Queensland GP-entrepreneur

For many years Dr Aaron Chambers has publicly misrepresented Growlife Medical's relationship with Possums, for his financial gain

"(1) A person must not advertise a regulated health service, or a business that provides a regulated health service, in a way that — (a) is false, misleading or deceptive or is likely to be misleading or deceptive." The Australian Health Pracitioner Regulation Agency's (AHPRA's) Guidelines for advertising a regulated health service 4.1 Section 133.

I have substantial evidence which demonstrates

• Dr Chambers’ online and other disinformation concerning myself, Possums, and Growlife Medical services over the past six years

• That patients have been misled to believe they are receiving the Possums programs at Growlife Medical

• That mothers and babies received or receive assistance at Growlife Medical which was not, and is not, consistent with the Possums programs

• That health information available on the Growlife Medical website about common presentations by mothers or parents and their infants, including breastfeeding, is not aligned with the evidence-based Possums or NDC programs.

Possums or NDC Accredited Practitioners commit to ethical practice and respectful acknowledgement of my own, other women’s, and other people’s professional contributions and intellectual property. You can find out how every health professional who has participated in a Possums/NDC course, either through the Possums charity (2013-2023) or The NDC Institute (2023 ongoing), has agreed to use the Possums/NDC identity and brand here.

What's happened?

Possums is the popular name for the Neuroprotective Developmental Care programs; the two names have always been synonymous. I have developed the Possums programs over the past 25-years, in a primary health care environment which poses multiple obstacles to the development of genuinely community-based clinical innovation.

Parents have been misled by years of disinformation from Dr Chambers concerning the relationship between myself, The Possums Clinic, and Growlife Medical, for the financial benefit of Dr Chambers and Growlife Medical’s contractors, causing harm.

For example, amongst multiple misrepresentations found on the Growlife Medical website page entitled 'The Possums Clinic', Dr Chambers poses the question: Is Growlife Medical and Possums Clinic the same? He then gives a false answer: Yes. When Possums Clinic was purchased it was rebranded to Grow Medical. Multiple communications and lawyer's letters from the Possums charity and myself requesting the removal of this illegal claim have been ignored.

• You can visit Growlife Medical's illegal 'The Possums Clinic' webpage here.

• You can view screenshots of this and other pages taken 11 December 2024 are here.

In 2017 Dr Chambers communicates to me his ambitions concerning mother-baby clinical services

Dr Chambers introduced himself to me when he was a delegate attending a Possums Conference which I'd organised in Brisbane in February 2017 in my role as Founder and Medical Director of the Possums charity, and suggested that we meet for coffee. Dr Chambers told me he was currently opening the doors of Grow Medical's first general practice (later rebranded Growlife Medical).

Over coffee, Dr Chambers told me he aimed for Grow Medical to become Australia’s pre-eminent chain of general practices. He told me he aimed to build Grow Medical practices by

• Attracting in families with babies, with a view to providing the family with general practice services for life

• Recruiting female GPs who enjoyed working with mothers, babies, and children

• Promoting family values in a GP-led business with particular emphasis on ethics and ethical relations with contractors, either GPs or other health professionals, and staff.

I told Dr Chambers that I and the Possums Board of Directors had been in talks with various general practice corporations, as we were intending to sell the multi-disciplinary general practice that we'd opened in 2015 at Highgate Hill. I explained this was so that I could focus on developing the Possums or NDC Masterclasses and Accreditation pathways, as well as on delivering my clinical services.

Dr Chambers is granted a royalty-free licence to use the Possums brand until September 2020, on the condition the Possums Board approves his usage

In September 2017, Dr Chambers purchased the clinic in Highgate Hill, Brisbane, from the charity Possums for Mothers and Babies Ltd. I had founded the Possums charity in 2013, of which I was Medical Director.

The Possums Clinic had opened its doors in July 2015, starting as a fresh site. The Possums Clinic at Highgate Hill remained in a start-up phase at the time the sale to Dr Chambers finalised in October 2017 but had demonstrated solid growth and excellent potential, which is why Dr Chambers purchased it.

With his purchase Dr Chambers acquired

1. A general practice which had been accredited with Australian General Practice Accreditation Ltd (AGPAL) in May 2016

2. Around ten employment contracts including independent contractor doctors, other health professionals, and two administrative staff

3. Lease of an extensively remodelled renovated boutique general practice with specialised furnishings, which Growlife Medical describes as 'historic', with five consulting rooms and a large group room.

The charity also granted Dr Chambers a three year licence to use the intellectual property of the Possums for Mothers and Babies Ltd charity on the ongoing condition of the Possums Board’s consent.

I have always owned the Possums or NDC intellectual property, which I’ve created from largely unpaid work. I had licenced a portion of my intellectual property to the charity. The Possums charity (2013-2023) is currently undergoing liquidation.

In April 2018 Dr Chambers terminates my employment contract with Grow Medical

On 22 March 2018, I resigned as Medical Director of the Possums Clinic service in the Grow Medical Highgate Hill practice and took leave, effective immediately. I had found myself subject to dysfunctional and exploitative behaviours in the Grow Medical workplace, and my communications about this to Dr Chambers were not responded to. I kept my concerns about these dysfunctional behaviours private from all staff, with the exception of one non-GP medical specialist who was also concerned.

I initiated formal mediation with Dr Chambers, detailing the problems and presenting a plan for going forward. Mediation was unsuccessful.

Dr Chambers terminated my employment contract on 27 April 2018, and soon after the Board of Directors of the Possums charity withdrew Dr Chambers’ licence to promote Grow Medical services using the Possums name. Although Dr Chambers made appropriate agreements about the use of the Possums brand and intellectual property in letters from his lawyers at that time, he did not abide by these undertakings.

Instead, from 27 April 2018 until today, Dr Chambers has engaged in extensive online and other disinformation concerning the relationship between Possums, myself, and Growlife Medical (rebranded from Grow Medical), in order to attract families with babies as patients into his mother-baby hub, and to recruit and retain female GPs who enjoy working with mothers and babies into Growlife Medical centres.

I had made an agreement on my lawyer's advice, both verbally with Dr Chambers in trust, and legally, embedded within the employment contract, that I would always have the right to continue developing and delivering the Possums programs clinically elsewhere if the contract were to be terminated, in the ongoing service of education and research. However, after Dr Chambers terminated my employment contract, it was reported to me that he falsely told multiple people I had forfeited my right to practice clinically in my home city of Brisbane.

Growlife Medical persistently falsely promotes Dr X as a fully qualified Possums practitioner

I had recruited Dr X to the Highgate Hill Possums Clinic in 2015, who then worked eight hours a week until I departed.

In 2015, Dr X completed an introductory Possums course (12 hours of CPD education). This course was outdated by the time I left Growlife Medical, and was superseded by the NDC or Possums Accreditation Pathway (at least 75 hours of CPD education + examination).

In June 2018, after I had left Growlife Medical, Dr X declined a generous written invitation to become NDC or Possums Accredited, extended by the Possums Board for the sake of patients. The only two other practitioners offering clinical mother-baby services at Growlife Medical and to whom we also offered this opportunity, a GP registrar and registered nurse, accepted.

Despite declining to upskill, Dr X continued to falsely promote her services online as an experienced Possums Practitioner or Fully Accredited Possums Practitioner. Over the next two years, the Board and myself sent two emails to Dr X, who directed me to Dr Chambers lawyers, and then a small number of lawyer’s letters to Dr Chambers, requesting that these false claims concerning Possums qualifications cease, because we had evidence that this misled parents.

Finally in 2020, the Board of the Possums charity made an online and social media post stating that

• The Possums Clinic has not rebranded to become Growlife Medical, despite false claims on the Growlife Medical page entitled 'The Possums Clinic'

• There were no Possums or NDC Accredited Practitioners at Growlife Medical

• Content on the Growlife Medical website was not consistent with the Possums or NDC programs.

In April 2020 Dr Chambers and Dr X lodge separate fabricated and extreme complaints about me with AHPRA

Three things happened in response to this public statement of fact by the Possums Board of Directors.

1. On 14 April 2020, Dr X lodged a vindictive claim against me with the Ombudsman, referred on to Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA). Dr X stated she was concerned about my "sustained and escalating pattern of unprofessional conduct", demonstrated by a "prolonged campaign of bullying, intimidation and public defamation of the health professionals who remained with Grow Medical, myself included." Dr X argued that the Possums Board's public notice was the key example. In another example, Dr X claimed that "at least two practitioners have been so distressed by the harassment that they have left."

   However, the GP and RN who had accepted the Possums Board’s offer to join NDC Accreditation both departed Grow Medical because they felt ethically compromised by Grow Medical’s ongoing use of the Possums brand for Grow Medical’s financial and reputational benefit. Both continued to educate GPs and other health professionals in the Possums programs as NDC Accredited Practitioners, in warm collegiate relations with me – the RN for another five years. Similarly, the non-GP medical specialist who participated in the formal mediation I’d initiated with Dr Chambers prior to termination of my contract told me she left Grow Medical because of the same ethical concerns.

2. On 25 April 2020, Dr Chambers lodged a vindictive mandatory notification about me with the Ombudsman, referred on to AHPRA. Dr Chambers stated he was acting in response to the same public notice which had triggered Dr X’s AHPRA complaint. His extraordinary mandatory notification constitutes misrepresentation and gaslighting, point by point, which I am able to demonstrate with documentary evidence.

3. On 27 April 2020 Dr X’s lawyer wrote a letter to me threatening that Dr X would sue me personally for defamation. In this letter Dr X's lawyer falsely and remarkably continued to insist that Dr X is "[is] fully accredited in Possums programs".

On 25 April 2020 Dr Chambers lodges a mandatory notification with AHPRA stating that multiple clinicians with whom he's discussed the matter are concerned my behaviours are consistent with various mental illnesses

AHPRA's Good medical practice: a code of conduct for doctors under Professional behaviour states:- 10.4 Vexatious complaints. "Vexatious complaints lack substance and have other motivations. They are often characterised by an intention to protect commercial interests and/or cause harm to another health practitioner, instead of a genuine concern about patient safety. Good medical practice involves ... [10.4.2] Not making vexatious complaints about other health practitioners.

I am grateful to have enjoyed good mental health throughout my lifetime. I don’t have and have not had mental illness or illnesses. But even if that was the case, the vicious, confabulated nature of these complaints by a doctor against a fellow GP for business purposes remains remarkable, and inconsistent with the values of most Australian GPs.

Dr Chambers alleged that multiple unnamed clinicians with whom he had discussed the matter agreed that my behaviours were consistent with various mental illnesses, which he suggested could be bipolar disorder, personality disorder, and psychotic delusions of grandeur.

Dr Chambers alleged that my lack of insight into my mental illness/es placed my patients' safety and wellbeing at risk, and made me unfit to practice.

With these vindictive and unfounded allegations, Dr Chambers self-reported that he had been engaged in destructive rumours about me amongst my colleagues.

On 20 July 2020 AHPRA closed Dr Morgan’s and Dr X’s notifications without investigation.

AHPRA's Good medical practice: a code of conduct for doctors under Professional behaviour states: - 10.7 Advertising. Good medical practice involves: 10.7.1 Making sure that any information you publish about your medical services is factual and verifiable.

On 17 September 2020, I lodged a counter complaint with the Ombudsman, referred on to AHPRA, due to my ongoing concern for patients who were mislead to believe they were receiving the Possums programs from Dr X. I emphasised my confidence in Dr X's competence and safety. I requested only that firstly, Dr X be asked to cease falsely promoting herself as Possums accredited, and secondly, cease falsely promoting her services as a Possums Clinic or a rebranded Possums Clinic. I offered over 20 items of evidence, including examples of false online promotions, patient reports of negative impacts of the false promotions, and of Dr X falsely promoting her services as The Possums Clinic at an Expo stall which was attended by 15,000 parents. AHPRA dismissed this complaint.

Are the strategies of demeaning me and falsely asserting that the Possums programs are 'general health knowledge' necessary to assauge moral distress amongst the health professionals who offer specialised mother-baby services for Growlife Medical?

It seems to me that the GPs and other health professionals offering mother-baby services at Growlife Medical have been placed in a situation of ethical dissonance by persistent false online promotion of their services to patients over multiple years as a rebranded Possums Clinic. Are the following strategies employed to assauge the ethical discomfort of Growlife Medical clincians offering specialised services to mothers and babies?

• Attributing courteous email approaches and then lawyers' letters to my alleged mental illness/es which trigger "irrespective of passage of time or associated events", in "erratic, waxing and waning behaviour" (Dr Chambers mandatory notification to APHRA 25 April 2020).

• Co-optation of the Possums programs as general evidence-based health knowledge, which does not require clinicians to respect or acknowledge the name or provenance of the programs (that is, intellectual property ownership), at the same time as their services are promoted to be the same as a Possums Clinic. Yet claiming that the Possums programs are general evidence-based health knowledge fails to understand the nature of implementation science, and the unique interpretative lenses used by the Possums programs in the translation of research into education programs and clinical practice. These same clinicians would not promote themselves to the public as offering Circle of Security or Triple P Parenting programs, for example, unless they were formally certified to do so.

Here are other examples of unethical behaviours, from amongst many I could illustrate, which compromise the health professionals who are promoted as delivering specialised mother-baby services (breastfeeding, sleep, unsettled infant behaviour) out of Growlife Medical.

1. Dr Chambers stated in a letter from his lawyer that he had the right to remove the Possums logo from a document I’d written for parents coming into The Possums Sleep Program and replace it with a Grow Medical logo. Dr Chambers falsely claimed he had this right because he considers The Possums Sleep Program to be general, evidence-based health knowledge.

   • This act fails to respect copyright law.

   • You can read about the unique elements of The Possums Sleep Program and how I developed it over many years using implementation science here. To claim The Possums Sleep Program is general, evidence-based health knowledge is to fundamentally misunderstand the Possums or NDC programs, and implementation science.

2. For many years, Growlife Medical’s website has invited the public to “Read about our approach to baby sleep”, linking to a blog written by a mother, Kaitlyn, about the intervention she received for Harry’s sleep problems at Growlife Medical, which occurred before the GP and RN who accepted the opportunity to become NDC Accredited left Growlife Medical late 2018.

   • Kaitlyn also wrote a version of the same experience in a blog that was available up until August 2023 in parallel on the Possums charity's site. In the charity’s version of her blog, Kaitlyn ethically named the program that she received as The Possums Sleep Program.

   • Is Growlife Medical conducting collegiate in-house training of health professionals in The Possums Sleep Program, rebranding it as the Growlife Medical (or 'Our') Approach to Infant Sleep?

3. Similarly, Growlife's website states, answering an FAQ for patients re infant sleep: "We encourage parents to respond to the child to meet their needs and use alternative scientific strategies to reduce the frequency of night wake ups." The only baby and toddler sleep approach available internationally which claims to reduce frequency of night wake ups and which uses scientific strategies to do this, and five positive evaluation studies to back it up, is my own innovation, The Possums Sleep Program. There is no other approach similar to this. Because The Possums Sleep Program is unique and uniquely identifiable, it's unethical to refer to this program in clinic advertising which aims to attract patients in for commercial purposes, without firstly, properly identifying the name of this program, and secondly, being properly qualified to deliver it (that is, NDC Accredited). You can read more here.

4. Similarly, Growlife's website states, answering another FAQ about sleep: "Very young babies will typically include feeding support as one of the five domains affecting the wellbeing of the mother and baby: feeds, sleep, sensory nourishment, mental health of parent and baby; physical health of parent and baby." The only approach to unsettled baby available internationally, which is written up in multiple of my research articles and which addresses feeds as part of these specific five domains to be considered is the Possums 5-domain approach to unsettled infant behaviour. There is no other approach similar to this. Because The Possums 5-Domain Approach to Unsettled Infant Behaviour is unique and uniquely identifiable, it is unethical to refer to this program in clinic advertising which aims to attract patients in for commercial purposes, without firstly, properly identifying the name of this program, and secondly, being properly qualified to deliver it (that is, NDC Accredited). You can read more here.

5. Growlife Medical’s website promotes 'Gestalt breastfeeding', alongside a photo of Dr X demonstrating an approach which is unrelated to the gestalt method, and which links through to Growlife Medical’s breastfeeding services. The gestalt method refers to a unique series of steps in the breastfeeding domain of the Possums programs.

   • I have evidence from multiple patients that Growlife Medical offers breastfeeding help which is not aligned with the gestalt method or with other vital aspects of the Possums/NDC breastfeeding evidence base.

The RACGP awards Growlife Medical National General Practice of the Year 2024

My efforts to protect the integrity of the Possums or NDC programs has not been an effort to claim “rights or ownership over the professional knowledge of others” which “border[s] on delusions of grandeur”, as Dr Chambers proposes in his vindictive mandatory notification to AHPRA.

My efforts to protect the Possums intellectual property and identity are the same as those made by other clinician-researchers who've developed innovative evidence-based programs like Circle of Security, Tuning into Kids, or Triple P Parenting, and who have mechanisms in place to protect training processes and the integrity of promotion of participants' qualifications.

However, because the Possums programs are a genuine general practice innovation, they have lacked the protection of either university- or hospital-funded legal teams.

I have been a proud member of the RACGP for close to four decades, and previously working from the Possums charity platform and now from the social enterprise platform 'The NDC Institute: Home of the Possums Program'. I have also been an RACGP Education Provider for years.

On 15 and 17 November 2024, respectively, I submitted complaints by email to both the Chair of RACGP Queensland and the President of RACGP nationally, stating that Dr Chambers' values do not align with the values of most Australian GPs. I included a copy of

• An unanswered letter from my lawyer to Dr Chambers (see Addendum 2), sent on 8 November 2024, once more requesting that he cease passing off Growlife Medical's mother-baby services as Possums

• Dr Chambers’s vengeful and unfounded mandatory notification

• My article "A green light to gendered abuse in general practice", found here.

Nevertheless, on 21 November 2024, at the National RACGP Conference in Perth, Growlife Medical won the RACGP’s National General Practice of the Year.

Conclusion

I welcome the inclusion of multi-disciplinary mother-baby services in various primary care settings throughout Queensland and Australia. However, in an article found here, I use criteria discussed in a Lancet special edition on this topic to show why Dr Chambers' entrepreneurial success has been foundationally built upon behaviours consistent with gendered abuse in the Australian general practice setting.

Australian GPs are well regarded in the community, and are trusted to speak the truth to patients and to the public, whether in consultations, in education, or in online promotions.

But the past decade has been characterised by an exponential rise in unregulated online disinformation, which exploits the trust of many for the financial and reputational benefit of a few. This trend is now successfully exploited, in the situation I detail here, by general practice entrepreneurship.

I write this blog to protect the integrity of the Possums mother-baby/parent-baby+toddler programs to which I've devoted decades of my professional life, and which I believe make a worthwhile, paradigm-shifting contribution to the wellbeing of families with infants. I write this blog to protect all those hundreds of GPs and other health professionals who have have upskilled in Possums or NDC, and who use the programs with integrity and respect in their own practices.

This issue only doesn't matter if genuinely research-based, holistic generalist innovation doesn't really matter, and isn't worthy of collegiate respect and support.

18 December 2024

Dr Pamela Douglas MBBS FRACGP FABM IBCLC PHD

Dr Aaron Chambers is GP Liaison Officer for the Queensland Children’s Hospital; owner of Growlife Medical’s five general practices, and an owner of five Allergy First clinics, of Cubcare Paediatric Urgent Care, and of GP Consults; Member of the RACGP Queensland Faculty Council, and Chair of the RACGP Queensland’s Education Committee. Dr Chambers worked closely with the AMA to protest the proposed payroll tax. In 2021 Dr Chambers received the RACGP Queensland Chair's Award, and in 2024 Growlife Medical has been awarded the RACGP Queensland General Practice of the Year, and the RACGP National General Practice of the Year.

Dr Pamela Douglas is a GP-researcher who developed the Possums or Neuroprotective Developmental Care programs, mostly unfunded and in her own time. Dr Douglas has always owned and continues to own the Possums/NDC intellectual property and trademarks. Dr Douglas founded the Possums for Mothers and Babies Ltd charity in 2013. The charity entered administration in August 2023 (and is currently undergoing liquidation). Dr Douglas continues to offer the Possums programs and health professional education from her new online social enterprise located here and here, and in the Brisbane Possums Clinic here.

Addendum 1

Here is one example from many documents I have which demonstrate Dr Chambers gaslighting of me, for commercial benefit.

Item 1 is an email I sent to Dr Chambers the day after he remonstrated me about a missed appointment with a practice nurse. I believed at the time that the practice manager must have taken the appointment out of my schedule in response to my direct request, standing together at reception looking at my Monday schedule together, but had forgotten to communicate to this to the practice nurse, and then didn't wish to communicate her mistake to Dr Chambers. Item 2 quotes how Dr Chambers describes this incident in the mandatory notification to AHPRA concerning my alleged mental illnesses which he lodged with AHPRA 25 April 2020.

Item 1

Item 2

"My initial concern about Dr Douglas’ professional behaviour commenced in approximately early 2018, when it had been arranged for the clinic’s most experienced nurse [NAME] to discuss infection control, reminder and recall procedures with the Highgate Hill Team, including Dr Douglas. The intent of the meeting was to ensure safe clinical practice, through all clinicians having appropriate knowledge of the systems. Dr Douglas refused to meet with the nurse without explanation, despite the appointment being in her clinic appointment book, the rest of the clinic meeting the nurse, and having no patients to attend at the time."

Addendum 2

Letter from my lawyer to Dr Chambers' lawyer 8 November 2024 (unanswered) after Growlife Medical was awarded RACGP Queensland General Practice of the Year 2024, and two weeks before Growlife Medical was awarded the National RACGP General Practice of the Year 2024

Page 1

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Parents have not received, and will not be receiving the constantly updating, research-based Possums/NDC programs when they attend Growlife Medical. We are also currently unable to allow clinicians and educators providing services in businesses owned by Dr Chambers to participate in Possums or NDC courses, or to promote themselves as Possums or NDC Accredited, due to years of illegal online promotions of Growlife Medical GP's and other Growlife Medical clinicians' services to parents in their mother-baby hub, which have misrepresented the relationship between Growlife Medical's clinicians and Possums. You can find an example of Growlife Medical's online promotions which contains multiple misrepresentations of facts here. Screenshots taken 11 December 2024 are here.