GP found guilty of misconduct over love affair
A SCOTS GP who had a ‘cloak and dagger’ affair with a patient faces being struck off after he was found guilty of misconduct at a disciplinary tribunal yesterday.
Dr Gordon Carter, 52, sent texts to the woman commenting on their ‘chemistry’ and signed one off with the phrase: ‘your favourite doctor’.
The father- of- three, of Insch, Aberdeenshire, began taking the woman, known as Patient A, for lunch and country walks, and on one occasion suggested they meet at a cemetery ‘as it was secluded’.
The GP, who worked at the Bydand Medical Group in Huntly, Aberdeenshire, then said, ‘I don’t want to have to ask you to be cloak and dagger’, before he kissed her and put his hand inside her top.
From January last year, the pair regularly met up on Sundays in a series of locations before Carter suggested she visit his house one weekend, where they first had sex.
Carter was reported to the General Medical Council after a complaint made by Patient A’s former psychologist.
At a Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service hearing in Manchester he admitted an affair but denied ‘pursuing’ the patient for sex.
A fitness to practise panel will now reconvene to discuss his punishment.
Yesterday, panel chairman Sara Fenoughty told Carter: ‘The panel found Patient A to be a credible witness and did not accept the submission that she was motivated by resentment. She readily accepted that she had made errors of judgment and her account was wholly consistent. You had given differing accounts of events to a number of people. It heard that you contacted Patient A on New Year’s Day with a text that said you were thinking about her. You could not explain why you had stored her number in your personal mobile phone but maintained that you had no emotional feelings for her at this stage.
‘The panel did not accept this and was satisfied that your motivation went beyond the professional relationship. The panel had considerable evidence of the fragile state of Patient A’s physical and mental health. It did not accept your evidence to the effect that she was well, although not completely well.’
The chairman added: ‘The panel is satisfied that when you pursued and engaged in an emotional and sexual relationship with Patient A, you knew that she was vulnerable in that she had complex long-term mental health problems (and) you knew that there were clear psychiatric concerns.’
The hearing was told Patient A was vulnerable having been diagnosed with an emotionally unstable personality disorder.
Carter began treating her in July 2013 and in the early hours of New Years’ Day 2014 she received a text from him saying: ‘Happy New Year from your favourite doctor.’
Over the following days, the pair exchanged several texts. Giving evidence, Patient A said: ‘It was surreal. I was really flattered.’
In early January, Carter allegedly changed his tone and told Patient A that they could not see each other socially or professionally because of boundaries set out in GMC guidelines.
‘It completely derailed me,’ said Patient A, who added that she then self-harmed. But contact resumed in late January and they started meeting for dates.
The relationship ended in October when Patient A heard rumours that the GP had been seen with another woman.
‘Her account was wholly consistent’