Sleep-starved surgeon let off for shoplifting a throat spray
A CONSULTANT surgeon facing career ruin over a shoplifting incident escaped with a warning after blaming the stress of work and family life.
Former Army doctor Ryan Wood was banned from a Sainsbury’s store after being quizzed by police for stealing a £5.50 throat spray.
The father of two later referred himself to the General Medical Council for a disciplinary hearing but the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service has now deemed him fit to practise medicine after he apologised.
Oxford-educated Wood, 40, who specialises in trauma and orthopaedics at Ipswich Hospital, said he had not slept for two nights because of a throat infection.
GMC counsel Rebecca Chalkley said: “The first item he took off the shelves was throat spray which he put in his pocket. He went to check out the rest of the shopping but the throat spray remained inside his pocket and was not scanned or paid for.
“He then left the shop, removed the spray from his pocket and put it in his shopping bag.
“If this was a mistake he made no attempt to return to the checkout, pay and right his wrong.”
Wood, who was stopped by a store detective, told the hearing: “No one knows the stress surgeons go through when operating on someone and how much of that goes on your shoulder.
“You have the skills to do the job but do not always have the mental and emotional resilience and I didn’t want to burden my wife by talking about it.
“I was so tired in Sainsbury’s as I had never had two nights back to back without sleeping. I was in a lot of throat pain – it was killing me and just so painful.
“I picked up a little throat spray and held it in my hand. I thought, ‘This isn’t going to be the thing I need to buy’.
“I only noticed it after I had gone through the checkout and thought, ‘Oh it’s there’ but just thought, ‘I need to get home’ and chucked it in my bag with the other items.
“I am very sorry. I just feel like I have let myself down, my friends down, my family down and my profession down.
“I never ever thought I would be capable of stealing. What I have done is dreadful. I know that.
“This has shocked me to the core but I am confident I am a good person and a good dad.”
Wood’s lawyer Wendy Hewitt said: “This was an extremely short incident at a time of great stress for DrWood.”
The warning will remain on Wood’s record for two years.
Accepting the incident was a oneoff, tribunal chairman Nathan Moxon said: “No doubt in years to come he will still be unable to explain why he acted in a manner that was so out of character.”