Surgeon suspended for sexual comments
A tribunal has suspended for nine months a surgeon who made sexual remarks to colleagues and used foul language to patients while working at Scarborough Hospital.
The Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service found allegations proven that Dr Serban Ioan Gheorghiu asked colonoscopy patients to get on all fours and “assume the George Michael position”.
It also said it was proven that he made sexual remarks to colleagues, rubbed himself up against a nurse and used foul language in front of patients and colleagues.
The doctor, who has since been working in the Doncaster area, declined to comment when approached by The Scarborough News at his home last week.
A statement after the tribunal in Manchester had finished said: “The tribunal was satisfied that a period of suspension would be sufficient to mark the seriousness of and deter Dr Gheorghiu’s misconduct, uphold public confidence in the profession and maintain proper professional standards without permanently depriving the public of a clinically competent doctor who appears capable of behaving in a professional manner, as demonstrated by his time at Doncaster and Bassetlaw Teaching Hospitals.
“The tribunal determined that a period of nine months suspension is an appropriate and proportionate sanction, and that such a time would be sufficient for Dr Gheorghiu to address and genuinely reflect on his behaviour.
“This period also marked the seriousness of the findings and the limited steps Dr Gheorghiu had so far demonstrated he had taken.”
Dr Gheorghiu workedin the endoscopy unit at Scarborough Hospital from February 2010.
The tribunal said that his misconduct had not, at any time, put patient safety at risk, and there had never been any complaints about Dr Gheorghiu’s clinical skills and work ethic.
It also said his conduct could be changed, and there was evidence that his behaviour has changed in recent months, since he started working in Doncaster.
Among the allegations which the panel found proven were that the surgeon told a patient they had cancer and that you couldn’t ‘sweep it under the f ****** table’, and he implied to a nurse that he was late for work because he had been having sex.
A spokesperson for York Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust said: “The concerns raised about Dr Gheorghiu were thoroughly investigated by the trust and were of such grave significance that a referral was made to the GMC, resulting in the recentlyconcluded fitness to practise hearing.
“Dr Gheorghiu was excluded from working at the Trust in June 2018 and has not been employed by us since October 2018.”