Dr Richard Scott, a GP in Margate is in the shit with the GMC because he has been causing distress to a patient by proselytising his christian beliefs.
At first sight it looks as though the GMC are up to their usual bullying tactics of harassing anyone who crosses their line of sight. What the previous CMO, in one of his rare episodes of perceptiveness, meant when he said, “the council causes distress to doctors over trivial complaints”. After all subjecting your patients to preaching, although distasteful, is hardly up there with shagging your patients, or killing them, or taking advantage of them financially.
But then if you look a little closer it is possible that there is more to this than is at first apparent. Firstly it is stated that all members of the Bethesda Medical Practice are christians. I have known a GP practice like this and the members unashamedly confirmed that when a vacancy arose only committed christians would be shortlisted. I am not sure if this is legal, but it shouldn’t be. My own view is that applicants for NHS posts should not even be asked their religion, any more than they should be asked their politics. And the vast majority of patients don’t expect or want religion introduced during a medical consultation. It simply isn’t appropriate.
Secondly Dr Scott admits to having had “a handful” of complaints before, which were resolved locally, so he is obviously in the habit of foisting his unwanted religious fervour on his captive patients. One wonders how many other patients have been offended by his approach but have not actually complained.
GMC good practice guidelines are quite clear on this. Paragraph 33 states “You must not express to your patients your personal beliefs, including political, religious or moral beliefs, in ways that exploit their vulnerability or that are likely to cause them distress.” I think that that is pretty clear and Dr Scott is indisputably in breach of this one.
So much as it pains me I have to side with the GMC on this one. These rules apply to us all and christians do not have an exemption. It’s a fair cop.
I seem to remember from the all-day "Equal Opportunities and Disability Awareness Course" my employer kindly made me sit through some years ago that there was a kind of blanket exemption in hiring policies for "limited partnerships with under a certain no of members". That is, if you were such an entity, with a small group of partners, you did not have to give reasons for your hiring policy favouring any category or categories of people. The number "five" springs to mind, but I could have misremembered.
ReplyDeleteAt the time the joke doing the rounds of the course was that these rules were presumably written by lawyers, who had unsurprisingly excluded four-partner (or less) law practises from giving reasons for not hiring:
"Someone who'd have found it difficult to fit in here".
"After all subjecting your patients to preaching, although distasteful, is hardly up there with shagging your patients, or killing them, or taking advantage of them financially."
ReplyDeleteNot just distastful, it is intimidating! And since patient goes to doc when already intimidated by disease, then this is taking advantage of the patient in perhaps the same way as 'sh*gging'.
"“You must not express to your patients your personal beliefs, including political, religious or moral beliefs, in ways that exploit their vulnerability or that are likely to cause them distress.”
Nyhahahaha :-D What's that 'Athiest' sign doing up there then oh wise Zorro, eh?
Hello ZI. I do say in the paragraph you quote "at first sight" Everything I wrote after the second paragraph you seem to agree with completely. Nice to see we have an accord on something.
ReplyDelete"you seem to agree with completely."
ReplyDeleteYou should've put your full stop after 'agree with' because there is no such a thing as agreeing completely with anything. Unless of course one has to ... to please, or to benefit from, or out of 'fear'! You're not freightening, are you Zorro?
Actually, quite the contrary. I think, overall, you're quite a decent person - and 'occasionally' you do make sense ... apart from when Mr Hyde takes over of course!
In your natural state, this time you have touched on a 'big' subject. I would, if I may, like to discuss that with you. Only you haven't answered my question and that would be a good starting point since in the post you speak one thing, while your ad above right says another. It makes you the same as the Christian Dr infront of the GMC, but an athiest one instead. He preaches Christianity and you preach athiesm. You go further too, since anyone who happens to believe in religion to you is 'deluded'. You then somehow think you have the right to belittle what they believe in, when believers in faith never never do the same to you!
Explain please, if you want to of course. Otherwise, we'll leave it at that :-)
I don't preach anything, but I do criticise some of the arrogant drivel that comes from some of the religious. And I certainly never bring the subject up with my patients. I DO have the legal RIGHT to belittle religious belief. We have been through this before. If you think the religious do not criticise atheism you are very narrowly read. There are places in the world where I could be put to death for having atheist views.
ReplyDelete