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Medical exorcism

Asolepius

Graduate Poster
Asolepius
Joined
Jul 5, 2004
Messages
1,150
This story looks worth following. From what I know of other malpractice cases brought before the GMC, they will bend over backwards to protect the doctor - although that will be difficult if she doesn't bother to defend herself. The news story doesn't say who made the complaint.
 
Asolepius said:
This story looks worth following. From what I know of other malpractice cases brought before the GMC, they will bend over backwards to protect the doctor - although that will be difficult if she doesn't bother to defend herself. The news story doesn't say who made the complaint.
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I doubt it. There are other news reports on this, and this doctor sounds like an all-round nutjob.
And she's not helping herself, either:
Dr Pratt is also alleged to have failed to co-operate with inquiries into her behaviour by her manager and the primary care trust.

The doctor chose not to attend the hearing or provide herself with any legal representation.
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Asolepius said:
This story looks worth following. From what I know of other malpractice cases brought before the GMC, they will bend over backwards to protect the doctor - although that will be difficult if she doesn't bother to defend herself. The news story doesn't say who made the complaint.
Click to expand...


There was some coverage last November. For some reason the tribunal hearing that started then seems to have been postponed.
 
Whenever this hapens it's because a woo-woo doctor chose to prescribe woo-woo for a patient who didn't ask for it. Compare the doctor suspended for treating a child's diarrhoea with a homoeopathic remedy she dowsed for - that one came to the GMC because the mother complained.

The problem is that most woo-woo is practised on the willing, who don't complain.

Rolfe.
 
Rolfe said:
Whenever this hapens it's because a woo-woo doctor chose to prescribe woo-woo for a patient who didn't ask for it. Compare the doctor suspended for treating a child's diarrhoea with a homoeopathic remedy she dowsed for - that one came to the GMC because the mother complained.
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This one?
 
While we're on the subject of fitness to practise hearings, another hearing date is coming up for Jayne Donegan on August 7th, as a result of expert evidence she gave in a case about vaccinations in 2003 (the case had to wait until the judgment in the Roy Meadow case decided that the GMC had jurisdiction to hear cases resulting from evidence given in court by doctors as expert witnesses). Like the Pratt case, this was originally down for hearing at the end of last year, but was for some reason postponed (I remember seeing it myself in the list of hearings for December 2006, also see here).

For the judgments in the case she was involved in that led to the proceedings, see here for the first instance decision with detailed discussion of the evidence, including:
Dr Conway considered Dr Donegan's first paper in a response of over 60 pages with which Professor Kroll entirely agreed. I am satisfied he was not over critical. But at various places he points to Dr Donegan being confused in her thinking, lacking logic, minimising the duration of a disease, making statements lacking valid facts, ignoring the facts, ignoring the conclusion of papers, making implications without any scientific validation, giving a superficial impression of a paper, not presenting the counter argument, quoting selectively from papers, and of providing in one instance no data and no facts to support her claim.
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And see here for the Court of Appeal decision:
The judge concluded that the medical evidence relied on by the two mothers to show that vaccination is dangerous and unnecessary was untenable. Dr Donegan's report was based on no independent research, and most of the published papers cited by her in support of her views turned out either to support the contrary position or at least to give no support to her own. Not to mince words, the court below was presented with junk science.
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Interesting.
I had a run in a couple of years ago with Dr Jane on the eBMJ correspondence about MMR/measles.
I'll keep an eye out for the case.

And also, BTW, I have performed an exorcism on a patient.

(PM me if you want details - I don't want you to read about it through a GMC case!)
Not actually likely - it was a long time ago in a faraway place....
 
Mojo said:
While we're on the subject of fitness to practise hearings, another hearing date is coming up for Jayne Donegan on August 7th, as a result of expert evidence she gave in a case about vaccinations in 2003 (the case had to wait until the judgment in the Roy Meadow case decided that the GMC had jurisdiction to hear cases resulting from evidence given in court by doctors as expert witnesses). Like the Pratt case, this was originally down for hearing at the end of last year, but was for some reason postponed (I remember seeing it myself in the list of hearings for December 2006, also see here).

For the judgments in the case she was involved in that led to the proceedings, see here for the first instance decision with detailed discussion of the evidence, including:

And see here for the Court of Appeal decision:
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You know that we often say nasty things about lawyers (usually misquoting Shakespeare as we do so) but when push comes to shove the courts do seen to get science right a good part of the time. Assuming that judges used to be lawyers. :cool:
 
Asolepius said:
This story looks worth following. From what I know of other malpractice cases brought before the GMC, they will bend over backwards to protect the doctor - although that will be difficult if she doesn't bother to defend herself. The news story doesn't say who made the complaint.
Click to expand...


They've suspended her for 6 months for failing to update the patient's notes, and found the rest of the complaint "not proven": Dr suspended over admin failure.
However allegations the doctor told Mrs K she had an evil spirit moving inside her and needed an exorcism could not be proved, the Fitness to Practise Panel ruled.

It said it could not be certain whose account of events during the consultation were more accurate.
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The GMC's conclusion seems specious to me. They have evidence from a third party that Pratt believed in witchcraft, and that she thought the patient was a victim. Is this professionally acceptable? Surely it shows that Pratt is as deranged as the patient, and unfit to practise for that reason alone.
 
The Fitness to Practise* Panel decision can be found here. It looks as if most of the allegations about Pratt's behaviour during her examination of Mrs. K were not found proved because Mrs. K was not fit enough to give evidence, having already gone through the stress of attending two earlier adjourned hearings. See the section headed "Determination on facts".

*Or as they call it, "Fitness to PractiSe" [sic]. Perhaps they're fed up with people saying "practice makes perfect".
 
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