Doctor’s lover ‘got skin cancer after pills he gave her made her doze in sun’
THE girlfriend of a senior doctor says she was struck down with skin cancer after repeatedly dozing in the sun because of the sleeping pills he illicitly gave her.
The mother of one said she was diagnosed with a melanoma after David Hildick-Smith, 55, supplied extra sedatives on top of those prescribed by her GP.
A medical tribunal heard she was given so many tablets by the Cambridge-educated consultant cardiologist that she became addicted to them.
The Surrey woman, identified only as Miss A, claimed the tablets made her fall asleep in the California sunshine while jetlagged on business trips.
She said she would wake up with severe sunburn.
Hildick-Smith, who is professor of interventional cardiology at the Sussex Cardiac Centre and works at the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton, prescribed diazepam, zolpidem and zopiclone to the woman when she was not his patent, it is alleged.
On one occasion, he prescribed her 84 diazepam tablets, the hearing was told.
Hildick-Smith was charged with misconduct by the General Medical Council after Miss A made a complaint in 2017. The Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service was told that Miss A, who has a child from a relationship with an airline pilot, met Hildick-Smith in 2009.
GMC barrister Chloe Fairley said a year later he started to prescribe her sleeping pills using prescription pads. ‘Throughout the time that he was prescribing to Miss A he knew her GP was prescribing to her,’ she added.
‘And she indicated that Dr Hildick Smith didn’t question her as to how many tablets she was getting from the GP.
‘He said she should go to different pharmacists as they might become suspicious in relation to the number of tablets prescribed. Sometimes he would prescribe 14 days or 28 days-worth of tablets at a time. He has never treated her as a patient.’
Miss A said of her diagnosis: ‘A dermatologist said I had obviously had extensive burns to my back when I had been sedated. I had blisters and burning and it was possible that was the cause of melanoma.’
Hildick-Smith’s lawyer, Stephen Brassington, said Miss A would issue threats and ‘do anything and say anything’ to stop him from practising medicine.
Hildick-Smith, from Lewes in East Sussex, denies dishonesty and misconduct. The hearing in Manchester continues.