Geoffrey Edelsten

Geoffrey Edelsten is an entrepreneur and former medical practitioner from Sydney, Australia. He accumulated significant wealth in the late 1980s as the owner and operator of a chain of medical centres. His medical registration was revoked in 1988 for hiring a hitman to beat-up a patient, and for fraudulent business practices.

He appeared before the New South Wales Medical Board in 2004 to try to re-obtain registration. He had been using the title 'doctor' since deregistration, and claimed that he obtained the title after receiving a doctorate in philosophy in 1995 from Pacific Western University, an unaccredited institution widely identified as a diploma mill.

Biography
Dr Edelsten's medical centres were notable for their opulent furnishings, featuring gold-metallic wall coverings, chandeliers, grand pianos and (rare in that era) large-screen televisions. Also unusual for a medical centre waiting room, was the provision of live entertainment by way of a pianist or opera singer. Despite the high quality and expensive fixtures of the medical centres operated by Edelsten, the clinics provided medical treatment at no cost to patients, by way of the Australian Government funded system of bulk billing, which is part of the Medicare system.

Dr Edelsten became a well-known public figure in Australia in the 1980s, partly due to his medical centres and partly as a result of his flamboyant lifestyle. His ex-wife Leanne, a former model, drove a pink Porsche, and he owned a helicopter and racing cars and purchased the Sydney Swans Australian rules football Club in 1985 for AUD$6.3 million.

Edelsten's financial position deteriorated markedly in the early 1990s. He was bankrupted, and divorced from Leanne. Two years later, he hired notorious underworld figure, Christopher Dale Flannery, to assault a former patient.

As of July 2004 Edelsten continues to manage medical centres and a DNA testing laboratory.