SINGAPORE - A traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) physician has been suspended and fined for professional negligence. She misdiagnosed a teenage patient as suffering from hormonal imbalance when, in fact, she was pregnant.

Wu Liping, of the Shenzhou Chinese Physician Clinic in Jurong, made the wrong diagnosis after hearing that the 15-year-old girl had missed her period for five months.

Wu then prescribed a herbal medication known as "taohong siwutang jiawei", which is meant to revitalise and strengthen blood flow.

However, the girl was actually five months pregnant and her father filed a complaint against Wu.

In a statement on Friday (June 10), the TCM Practitioners Board said that the medication prescribed by Wu would have posed a health risk to both the girl and her unborn child.

It said Wu had failed to conduct an adequate clinical examination of the girl. The physician had also not recorded the girl's medical history.

The board said: "Wu had prescribed the TCM herbal medication... to the patient without any regard to her actual medical condition."

It added that Wu had also failed to consider the possibility that the patient could have been pregnant. Wu's three-month suspension started on June 1. She has also been fined $5,000, and censured by the board.