Cancer patients ‘silenced’ in bid to save maverick doctor’s career
CANCER patients who say they were ‘written off’ by doctors are leading a backlash against an effort to strike a world-renowned oncologist off the medical register.
The patients claim to have been ‘silenced’ by a disciplinary panel that will this week decide the fate of Professor Justin Stebbing, a Harley Street oncologist and Imperial College cancer researcher.
In October, Prof Stebbing admitted 30 charges relating to over-treatment, not obtaining full patient consent, dishonesty and inappropriate behaviour in regards to 12 of his patients.
But supporters say evidence from some of the hundreds of patients satisfied with his care has been dismissed ‘out of hand’ by the Medical Practitioners’ Tribunal Service (MPTS), which rules on cases brought by the General Medimore cal Council (GMC).
Leading oncologists and medical researchers – some with
‘Their evidence has been dismissed’
personal experience of Prof Stebbing treating friends or family – also wrote to the MPTS to back him. In all, 600 messages of support arrived, of which 25 were submitted – but rejected – as potential evidence to the MPTS.
Extracts from letters praising the oncologist have also been passed to The Mail on Sunday, without the knowledge of Prof Stebbing or his legal team.
Restaurateur Graham Rebak, 47, who credits the oncologist with saving him from colon cancer, said: ‘I don’t understand why the GMC has done this to Justin. He only wants to help people.’ Another unnamed man with an ‘extremely rare’ cancer claimed he was told by another private oncologist that he would not ‘risk his career or pension’ to prescribe drugs that strayed from the ‘standard protocol’.
By contrast, he recalls, Prof Stebbing ‘has supported me’, adding: ‘If you have a rare or
complicated cancer in the UK you might as well be dead, as there is no room for thinking outside the box.’
Some former patients allege that insurance companies wanted to see Prof Stebbing’s wings clipped.
Efforts by Prof Stebbing’s lawyers to have testimonials admitted as evidence were twice rejected by an MPTS panel, which ruled them to be ‘of little (if any)’ value. Medics at leading institutions including Imperial College London and Columbia University in New York have also written in his support.
During a hearing last week to determine Prof Stebbing’s future, his barrister Mary O’Rourke QC argued the MPTS panel should give ‘weight’ to positive patient and colleague
testimonials. ‘Please bear in mind these people are alive to tell the tale, when they tell you they were sent away to die by other clinicians,’ she said.
Ms O’Rourke also noted that five of the 12 cases ‘were generated by AXA insurance’ via a doctor ‘who did an investigation of some 2,000 [of Professor Stebbing’s] patients and was doing so at the behest’ of the firm. None of the 12 patients whose cases were examined made a written complaint before they died and in only two cases was it a relative or family solicitor who contacted the GMC.
The GMC is urging the panel to strike Prof Stebbing from the medical register. The MPTS said it ‘cannot comment on the independent decisions of its tribunals’. Axa did not respond when contacted for comment.