Jobbing Doctor's Pulse

The Very Sexy Jobbing Doctor.

Jobbing Doctor is becoming a bit of a star on Pulse. I love his writing as everyone knows and he is the best rep for all of us intemperate beings whose style isn't suited to such publications.

JD wrote the following about why doctors did not whistleblow against Mid Staffs.

I should correct the following material slightly [if infact he refers to me although I do apologize if that wasn't the case]. JD writes :-

"I'll tell you why. Because those who have acted as whistleblowers in the past have seen their careers wrecked, that’s why. One brave doctor reported a neighbouring trust and as a result was reported to the GMC, was suspended, had allegations about her mental health raised and since then has scarcely worked. Another had to move to the other side of the world to be able to work"

Few corrections here :-

1. I wasn't reported to the GMC. I raised concerns with the GMC in the year 2000. They took up an investigation without a complaint and conducted a discreet inquiry for 2 years. It was essentially a illegal non procedural inquiry. In R v General Medical Council Ex Parte Powell, the GMC argued that a complaint could not be taken up without a formal complaint. Well, we know about Mark Shaw QC don't we, tilts with the stormy seas of the law. I am surprised he doesn't get sea sick.

Anyhow, this is what the General Medical Council did :-

"Despite the above, the General Medical Council refused to investigate the issues. They did though say as follows on Page 4 of the document 1st July 2004 Ref EMP/199/ZRA. This document was written by a lawyer by the name of Zahidar Ramzan Asghar :-

On behalf of her client Professor Griffiths she wrote

" Our client was asked by the General Medical Council as to why the Complainant might have made these allegations and whether our client thought that the General Medical Council should proceed against the complainant for making what appeared to be accusations in an unprofessional manner"

2. I have never been suspended from the GMC Register or any employment. There has never been any sanctions against me. Hard to believe but true :)

3. I did infact work between 1999-2007 - in General Medicine initially then in psychiatry. The jobs were mostly long term/short locums and was an affiliate member of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. That was until I was fired from Worcestershire Mental Health Trust in 2007 due to the continuing harassment by the GMC which has continued now since the year 2000.

4. I have been subjected to 3 complaints. All complaints were by oddballs who clearly had nothing better to do. They were all related to my written work. I have had no patient complaints or complaints from Trusts.

a. 2000 - the GMC instigated a complaint all on their own. They called it a "discreet inquiry.

b. 2003. The GMC instigated a complaint made by Dr Tim Woodman and his colleagues on Doctors.net.uk. It was regarding "defamation". The GMC later admitted in correspondence dated 2007 that they could not try defamation. Nevertheless, I was subjected to 6 months of investigation. This was due to the fact I had instigated litigation against the GMC which was subsequently won in the first application then settled. The complaint was taken up by the GMC to dissuade me from litigation. It didn't work because I reversed the complaint on Woodman and was cleared.

c. 2007. Complaint made by Penny Mellor and Fiona Woolard due to my undercover work on the David Southall case. Instigated by the GMC because I threatened to judicially review their decision in the Professor Griffiths complaint [ listed above] during that time. The two allegations were that I linked to a public document and that I called myself a "psychiatrist" without being on the specialist register. Due to the instigation of the complaint, I was fired from Worcestershire Mental Health Trust. The GMC were to amusingly call a number of doctors "Psychiatrists" [who were not on the specialist register] in their Press Releases. Indeed, their own barrister called me a "psychiatrist". I was cleared in September 2007 after nearly six months of investigation. The case examiners ruled that I could call myself a psychiatrist. The complaint arose because Penny Mellor has a total lack of understanding about medical matters. The matter was subject to a judicial review for which we won permission in 2008.

I am currently administratively erased from the GMC Register. There are many rumours about this but none of them are true.

Therefore, I should reiterate that I have never had any sanction against me from the GMC. I don't know where JD got that idea but I suspect there are various rumours from suspension to being struck off circulating around. It is probably because no one takes the time to read the chronology or perhaps I talk about the GMC so much that people by default feel they must have sanctioned me.

I do though have a ruined Fitness to Practise record, a collection of complaints made by the half crazed Doctors.net.uk posters [which I recently discovered] and the half baked Penny Mellor that were never taken up by the GMC. Nevertheless, I trust these people will be blocked by the vexatious complaints policy on Rule 4. I now have the entire collection which is a bit like a Imelda Markos collection really. Fools often rush in and never actually take their time to understand what they do. This Fitness to Practise record will remain for the term of my natural life. I trust that makes all those interested parties with a vendetta happy.

I think the worst the GMC can say is that I was guilty of writing :) material contrary to the vested interests of the medical establishment.

In conclusion, I should say that the NHS gets the doctors it fights for. It didn't fight for me therefore it is essentially their loss. There maybe a certain sense of arrogance regarding that but there we go. Cest la vie - failing systems often have no insight. That isn't my concern at anymore - because I essentially did my job as a doctor and following the closure of Ward 87 in 2005 which I instigated, I have probably saved many thousands of people. Despite the consistant lack of support from the medical fraternity, I can now say - that I was right and they were wrong - and now none of them have anything to say. They all sit their in silence. While, the GMC has effectively terminated my working life, I think in the last decade I have done more than many doctors do in their entire working life. My working life was a lot longer than expected for a whistle blowing junior doctor. And that is the end of whistleblowing decade where one request for a drip set magnified into an attack on health policy, subsequent backlash on a whistleblower through the Trust and the GMC, endless litigation to clear the smears and finally the evidence that I was correct all along. Is North Staffordshire NHS Trust about to apologise for the number of people they killed. Of course, not. Are they about to apologise to me or even thank me. Of course, not - that is because wickedness is in their blood, they have an indifference to patient death. During the time of the ward's existence, numerous people died needlessly. We won't know how many because the patient's relatives were never told and the death rates were never calculated or kept.

I hope Pulse or JD will correct the slight error :). I hope they will anyway.