Married woman GP shared kisses and intimate texts with patient at RAF base
A WOMAN GP shared kisses and intimate text messages with a married RAF serviceman at the base where she worked, a tribunal heard yesterday.
Dr Julien Nash, 54, who is herself married, faces being struck off over the relationship with her patient, which developed over a shared love of wildlife.
Although the pair did not became physically intimate, Dr Nash and the serviceman met regularly over an eight-month period. In one message she commented on how happy she was to hear his text arriving on her phone, writing: ‘I saw u too and I heard ur beep and my heart jumped because I love you.’
Another text she sent read: ‘Hello darling it was so wonderful at lunchtime.’
The relationship was discovered when pictures were taken of Dr Nash and her patient kissing during one of their lunch liaisons. Her husband Andrew, 66, a company director, also became suspicious when he noticed a birthday message on his wife’s Facebook page that had been posted by the patient with a kiss.
The matter was later referred to top brass at RAF Cosford in Shropshire where Dr Nash served as a GP for all personnel after the estranged wife of the serviceman – known only as Patient A – made a formal complaint.
Yesterday the doctor, from Bridgnorth, who worked as an aid worker in Nepal following the 2015 earthquake, faced a misconduct hearing in which she could be struck off. She arrived at the tribunal hand-in-hand with her husband, a finance expert, who is thought to be standing by Andrew Nash: Standing by his wife her. She admitted having an ‘emotional relationship’ with Patient A between September 2015 and April last year.
Her lawyer, Fiona Neale, told the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service in Manchester that the relationship amounted to ‘a lapse of judgment’ rather than anything more serious.
Chloe Fairley, lawyer for the General Medical Council, told the hearing an investigation was launched after Dr Nash referred herself following the complaint.
‘As part of the investigation a photograph was obtained of the two kissing and also recovered was a text message exchange,’ she said.
The hearing was told that while Dr Nash said she had ‘ceased all contact’ with the serviceman after kissing him in November 2015, she had seen him three times the following year for appointments because she was the base’s duty doctor at the time.
The relationship was said to have blossomed as they chatted while walking their dogs over their lunch breaks.
Giving evidence, Dr Nash said after receiving the complaint she spoke to her colonel. ‘I was told that things like this happen in the military all the time,’ she said. ‘He was laughing and said I would be absolutely fine. At the time I didn’t realise where I was. It was only when the complaint was made that I woke up and realised what had happened.’
Dr Nash said life on the RAF base meant being ‘constantly in contact with your patients’. ‘Despite voicing our concerns about this we were still made to treat them,’ she said, adding that the conflict caused her to go off work with stress in early 2015. ‘I felt that my professional boundaries had eroded over time and I
‘You made my heart jump’ ‘It was an escape for me’
recognised this and discussed this with my colleagues.’
Dr Nash acknowledged that ‘a patient and a doctor should not be kissing’. ‘At the time I didn’t realise the depth of affection that was building up,’ she said.
‘We always met in a public place and we were seen by members of staff that we knew. It was an escape for me at lunch time to go for a walk and have a conversation that was not about medicine.’
After they exchanged a kiss she advised him to see another doctor.
While she was in Nepal her husband pointed out that the serviceman had wished her happy birthday on Facebook, putting a kiss on his message. ‘He was very cross about this and asked me to defriend him immediately,’ she said.
Miss Neale argued that because the pair’s meetings always happened with other people present it was not an inappropriate relationship.
‘If this had been a female friend of Dr Nash would you label this as being in any sense improper?’ she asked the panel. ‘The issue here is limited to the kiss and the text messages.’
She added that the serviceman acknowledged initiating the first contact.
The hearing continues.