The Running Dogs Of the Most Corrupt

Consultants Running From Medical Whistleblowers
Professor Jimmy Elder Leads the Pack Of Gutless Wonders

Tim Vines makes an interesting point in his article here. Perhaps I should direct this at the British authorities :) who are ineffective, inadequate and quite frankly useless at addressing the issues concerning whistleblowing. For this reason the UK desperately requires a Health Select Committee review on the subject of whistleblowing. Currently, the UK has made no progress towards a culture change required to safeguard whistleblowers . Here is what Tim Vine quite rightly stated :-

Griffith University's recently completed study into whistleblowing practices in Australia, found that fewer than 2 per cent of public interest disclosures made by government employees ''received organisational support''. Moreover, a quarter of those surveyed reported subsequent retaliatory action and mistreatment by their employers. 'Whistling While They Work', found that fewer than 2 per cent of public interest disclosures made by government employees ''received organisational support''. Moreover, a quarter of those surveyed reported subsequent retaliatory action and mistreatment by their employers"

Even here, physical harassment and intimidation along with criminal and civil lawsuits, unnecessarily adverse performance reviews, demotions and sackings are routine consequences of whistleblowing"

This matches with most of the Ward 87 experiences.

Medical culture is particularly closed in nature, reluctant to change and do not accept whistleblowers. I felt that it would be good to outline the reaction of consultants when they become aware that you are a whistleblower.

The references are "before and after the knowledge of me as a whistleblower". A consultant would normally be fairly amenable, very supportive, effusively caring of my career when they were unaware of my past as a whistleblower. They would be amazingly encouraging, friendly, inviting. One could almost mistake them for human beings.

As intriguing as it sounds, as soon as I made my past known, the shutters came down, some even retracted their references. Over the years, I have collected all the evidence, starting from Dr Chattree to many others. The list is endless. Dr Chatree is the most interesting man, having practically campaigned for me to apply for a junior post in Blackburn, he ran the opposite direction when he discovered the involvement of the GMC and whistleblowing.

Indeed, I used my stop watch to time how long he would take to do a " runner". Later in life, Chattree who effectively refused to return my emails, phonecalls and letters became embroiled with the General Medical Council. Professor Jimmy Elder is another man in North Staffordshire NHS Trust who was effusively encouraging until it all stopped as soon as I become a whistleblower.

I have copies of endless letters sent to Jimmy Elder who in the end opted not to respond. It is easier not to respond. No one knows about it and hopefully the whistleblower either dies or everyone forgets them. And that is what Jimmy Elderly thought would happen to me. And to think that Elder once stated I had one of the best CVs he had ever seen :). All these effusive compliments that break into fragments as soon as the word "whistleblower" is mentioned. It is equated with the word " troublemaker" etc etc. Of course, seniors often have debates about whistleblowers, it is all about how to effectively execute damage control.

Of course, nothing was different about me. I was the same person - but for some reason things change with doctors. Perhaps it is a anti-whistleblower built in genetic alarm system that makes them run.

We should contrast this with consultant neurologist Dr Rupert Price who was very happy to support a man on a terror trial [Dr Asha]. Price didn't run from Asha but then Asha used to be a terror suspect not a whistleblower.

This is an interesting phenomena. Consultants more likely to support junior doctors who are on terror trials or even Magistrate Court trials. They are all less likely to support whistleblowers. This is the reason why many whistleblowers complain of reference assasination.

I am of the view that most consultants will remain at arms length assuming that they may well catch some unknown viral infection or leprosy from whistleblowers. You learn to understand the "look". You learn to understand the failure to respond to mail. You learn to understand that overnight, a consultant's attitude can change radically against you. I think I learned about this and after the second time, it is something you get used to. These days I carry a stopwatch, you say the word " whistleblower" and then you plot the time taken for these consultants to run the other direction. Actually, the time taken to run is pretty fast these days.

And that is the medical profession's attitude to whistleblowing in a nutshell. It is unsupportive, uncaring and essentially intended to drive most whistleblowers underground. This is a cultural phenomena. I think most of them are of the view that if they leave the whistleblower to fend for his or herself, they will disappear from the radar. Many of course have.

Apart from consultants, the same reaction is obtained from medical friends. I suspect when you move away from the narrow minded mentality of hierarchical medicine, you are then able to write about the issues unemotively and practically. In personal relationships, the bottom line is often " what is more important". The interesting phenomena about whistleblowing is the fact that it pins friends and colleagues against the wall and deciphers the real ones from the hangers on quite nicely.

Tomorrow, I think I shall talk about Dr Aloke Sen, a guy who was practically my brother, a doctor who works a a General Practitioner now but decided he should drop his 32 year old friendship with me when his friends began to talk about the fact it was not the done thing to be a friend of a whistleblower. Aloke Sen will not like this of course because it will have all sorts of implications for him. Nevertheless, one good turn deserves another and he makes good narrative.

He lounges around in his comfy job as a General Practitioner in Cheshire assuming that all his forgotten. Dr Sen's pet name is Shrinath Sen. Shrinath Sen's father and my late father were the best of friends. We therefore grew up together. Shrinath though didn't turn out to be like his father, he turned out to be everything his late father would have despised. Nevertheless, Sen is an excellent example of many medical doctors' reaction to whistleblowing. I will use him as an example because I have known him since his times as a teenager. I wanted to use him to study an example of a person who has known you for many years suddenly considering you a whistleblower and opting for " society acceptance" rather than family.

Sen and I haven't been in touch since about 1999.

Anyhow, until tomorrow........