Christian Dr Richard Scott reported to the General Medical Council (GMC) for sharing his faith with a patient.
I’m always in two minds whether to blog on cases picked up by the Christian Legal Centre, for various reasons. I often opt not to as there seems to be so many cases nowadays. Sometimes I simply don’t agree with the legal premise. Other times I feel these cases are overly combative, exhibiting an unwillingness to opt for mediation before legal proceedings. Some cases are simply petty.
Having said all this, I will note a case in the news today, as the interface of Christianity and medicine is of general interest to me.
The case involves Dr Richard Scott, who works at Bethesda Medical Centre in Margate, Kent – a practice well-known for having Christian partners. He has been been threatened with an Official Warning by the General Medical Council (GMC) and is currently under investigation for sharing his faith with a patient.
The Telegraph has picked up on this here and here.
Christian Concern had this to say:
In 2010, Dr Scott saw a patient on the practice list at the request of the patient’s mother. At the end of the consultation, the patient and doctor discussed religion, each being of different faiths. The patient has continued to seek treatment from the practice, but his mother filed an official complaint, claiming that the GP had not offered medical advice during a consultation, but instead, talked about Jesus!
The GMC has written to Dr Scott offering a ‘compromise’ decision to the disciplinary complaint of placing an Official Warning on his file. However, the GP is calling on his professional body to strike-out the complaint on the basis that the complaint was from a mother who was not medically qualified to comment on what treatment, if any, a medical practitioner should prescribe and, the GMC’s own guidelines state that it is acceptable to present faith to a patient as long as it is done gently and sensitively.
Dr Scott, who has an unblemished record as a medic, says it is totally unacceptable for his professional reputation and official file to contain a rebuke for acting both professionally, and within the guidelines. He claims the complaint has been made knowing that professional bodies are nervous about claims of a religious nature, and therefore it is a way of getting back at the GP.
Dr Scott said: “I only discussed my faith at the end of a lengthy medical consultation after exploring the various interventions that the patient had previously tried, and after promising to follow up the patient’s request appointment with other medical professionals.
“I only discussed mutual faith after obtaining the patient’s permission. In our conversation, I said that personally, I had found having faith in Jesus helped me and could help the patient. At no time did the patient indicate that they were offended, or that they wanted to stop the discussion. If that had been the case, I would have immediately ended the conversation.
“This complaint was brought to the GMC not by the patient, who has continued to be a patient at this practice, but by the patient’s mother.”
The medical practice at which Dr Scott works is well known in the community for having Christian partners and is named after a Biblical name. Dr Scott says he has talked about his faith with many patients over the years, and many of them have been encouraged. Dr Scott, who for seven years has been a worshipper at St Paul’s Church, Cliftonville (CofE), is so determined to clear his professional name that he has instructed the Christian Legal Centre to advise him in his case. They, in turn, are using the leading human rights lawyer, Paul Diamond as lead counsel.
On the face of it, it would appear that this “Official Warning” is unwarranted, if indeed the medical consultation was concluded and the discussion of faith was with consent.
There is always the thorny issue of public servants discussing faith whilst in the employ of the government.
But this case also raises the appropriateness of spirituality within medicine. If the medical profession is to treat people in a holistic manner then surely issues of faith and spirituality are part and parcel.
Or is this a case of innappropriate evangelism?
Tags: Christianity, News, Science & Medical
May 22nd, 2011 at 6:50 pm
“Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.” Matt 5:11
You’d think, given this injunction of Scripture that there would be a good deal less complaint on the part of Christians claiming harassment at work; but it would seem not…
As someone who for many years worked as a public servant – seven of those years spent in cancer/palliative care social work at one of London’s leading cancer centres, I am well used to the difficulties of talking to people in medical situations. Faith is something that is discussed (or should be discussed) as part of many formal assessments – particularly in my own field. In the main, I would refrain from sharing any personal views or even insights into my own beliefs in conversations with patients. This was for two reasons; first, you have to acknowledge that you are working with very vulnerable people and that it is better if they lead with the subject; any suggestions could be seen as ‘proselytising’ or even questioning their own views on religion and belief.
The only person I really shared with about my ‘religious’ past was Jehovah’s Witness woman – and that was because the only place that we could find for her to go to die was a local hospice that had Roman Catholic roots. The woman was concerned that efforts would be made to convert her (yes, I know the irony made me smile too!); she had a particular fear of monks and nuns – she knew it was irrational, but it was a fear nevertheless. In the end it was a choice of the hospice or dying in the hospital as her care needs were just too great for her to return home. Once she moved to the hospice I visited her. Her daughter & son-in-law (also JWs) were present and at the end of the meeting – what I thought was probably my final goodbye – I pulled out a photograph of me in my monk’s habit. We all laughed at this – and I ask her then if she still had reservations about monks and nuns (we had known each other for well over a year by this time!). But in the main, I kept my beliefs separate to my work.
Though I did write and present a seminar for medical, nursing and social work staff on the importance of faith in social work and hospital care. I made a point of how easily we, as professionals, could ask all sorts of personal questions about bodily functions or sexual histories and yet skip questions about faith, despite almost all assessment tools having a section on the subject. Most nursing and social work assessments would just have ‘CofE’ or RC or Mulsim written in the box – no record was made of a discussion on the needs of the patient. The intention of my seminar was to encourage professionals to ask patents about their faith and how their spiritual needs could be met in hospital. But this is not the same as suggesting that a patient should have faith or that they should have a particular faith.
The second reason I was cautious when talking about faith, was it would mean giving something about myself away – and I came to realise that you need to protect yourself when working at the raw end of human suffering. Hence I displayed empathy, but after several years of watching people (often young people, with small children and everything to live for) go from diagnosis to death – a time span that allows a personal relationship to develop between you as the worker and the patient – that it was best to keep something of yourself back.
As you say, I think matters like this can best be dealt with via mediation rather than the GMC wading in, all guns blazing (or the Christian Legal Centre for that matter!). Yet I am struck by this comment:
“In our conversation, I said that personally, I had found having faith in Jesus helped me and could help the patient.”
This is a suggestion that is out of place in a doctor/patient relationship. It is a recommendation not a discussion about faith – there is a clear difference. A doctor is a person with considerable real and perceived power. It does, to me at least, seem to be crossing the line between talking about faith and ‘recommending’ a particular faith, or attitude to and of faith. If a doctor was to say the same thing to me, I would certainly make a complaint – tho’ probably to the doctor’s face, rather than behind her/his back.
It does seem yet another example of the ‘hierarchy of oppression’ or martyrdom that seems the vogue at present. I think the answer is to acknowledge multi-culturalism has failed because it gives rise to a ‘hierarchy of oppression’ rather than a celebration of difference. My view is that we should just have a generic service from health and social care professionals – not to mention services in general. The real irony is that a secular model of service delivery is far more likely to provide services which protect the religious rights of the individual using the service than if the state became prescriptive about religion in the public sphere. But such a model depends on those providing the service realising they are paid to do a job not make recommendations about people’s religious beliefs.
Regards:
P.
May 22nd, 2011 at 8:21 pm
Excellent contribution as usual Peter….
May 23rd, 2011 at 3:05 am
I’m a muslim, and i am offended at how the GMC has reacted to this, it is utterly silly. If someone is in dire need of advice and one believes that religious practice can help, then does that mean, being a doctor, that one must force oneself to be quiet? Isn’t this particularly against doctor-patient trust, would you trust your doctor (or friend) after they have kept something from you that they really believed can help you?
I think if there is some understanding of how far one can go, i.e. with ‘religion talk’, then it should be ok. I can see that if there wasn’t a law to prevent religious talk then anyone can preach their religion onto another – who maybe in a weaker state, and somehow this might be unfair. However, to completely prevent it, is also problematic, as this is directly indicating that any recourse to religion is ‘wrong’ or ‘bad’.
I am thinking that there should be a ‘multi-faith safe’ terminology to somewhat negotiate a middle ground, i.e. doctors should be allowed to say things like ‘seek help from God about your health’, or other statements about God and one’s health, without perhaps going into more detail – unless the patient asks.
To accommodate the fact the patient can be an atheist, agnostic etc, one may further qualify above statements by saying ‘well when i used to feel like that i sought out God, and this sorted it out for me’ – to which the person may respond with questions that lead the doctor to elaborate further, or some indication not to tread this path of advice
May 23rd, 2011 at 12:35 pm
Well, soon walking on the street hand by hand with your girlfriend or boyfriend will be seen as “not natural”. Being heterosexual bad? Wait 5-10-15 years and you will see…
May 23rd, 2011 at 1:25 pm
Thanks for the compliment!
What I will add, reading over the above, is that one point I stressed in the seminar I presented on faith and social work practice (noted in my previous comment) is that too often non-Christian faith is seen as exotic and because it is an emblem of difference, is something that is included in planning patient care (e.g. the provision of Kosher and Halal foods – I have been present when doctors have discussed contacting the pharmacy to ensure the drugs prescribed for a patient meet with Halal or Kosher regulations!). Yet if a Christian patient talked about their beliefs it was sometimes dismissed as a ‘coping mechanism’. More so if the person was white.
Hence in this respect I think Christians do get a bit of a raw deal – multi-culturalism is at best an over concern – almost to the point of patronisation – with the needs of minorities; at worst it has has become a vehicle of inverted racism. In social work, there is a heavy reliance on what is termed ‘anti-discriminatory’ practice – which in essence is about treating people equally, aware that some groups are more likely to face discrimination, but fairness nevertheless. One of my little victories when I worked for an inner-London boro’ concerned an elderly woman who had had a bad fall and this had left her with mobility problems. She could no longer attend a luncheon club held at All Souls’ Langham Place. She was a vehement Evangelical and attending the luncheon club had been a big part of her life for many years. The woman had slender financial means and therefore I applied for funding to pay for a taxi to take her to the luncheon club twice a week. This was refused by my manager. When I asked why, I was told there was an old people’s day centre near where the woman lived and she should attend it. I argued that the Evangelical luncheon club was more about belief and culture and therefore a necessary provision if the woman was to maintain her cultural and religious identity; I also noted the council happily paid for taxis to allow Jews to attend Jewish day centres in Hendon and Muslims to attend Muslim day centres in Kensington, so why was this woman being refused the opportunity to have services geared to her religious and cultural beliefs? In the end I got the funding.
I will add I hated visiting this woman (she bored me with ‘Jesus this’ and ‘Jesus that! Her firm religious beliefs somewhat belied by her clearly dysfunctional family!) and moreover I would sooner put pins in my eyes than willingly cross the threshold of All Souls’ church, yet the point of anti-discriminatory is that it was my role to advocate for the needs of the client, even if they may be views I personally don’t agree with.
To return to the errant GP; this style of ‘public servant’ working is a double-edged sword. Yes, an individual’s beliefs should be respected and where possible included in the decision making process about their care and treatment. But it also means you as the professional have to sometimes keep your trap shut – yes you can discuss faith, but you can’t ‘recommend’ it.
Thanks again:
P
May 23rd, 2011 at 1:42 pm
“Well, soon walking on the street hand by hand with your girlfriend or boyfriend will be seen as “not natural”. Being heterosexual bad? Wait 5-10-15 years and you will see…”
Kristof, what has this got to do with the price of fish?
There is no evidence for this – it is an example of the Christian victim mentally noted above in my first comment; and moreover is playing on that well worn homophobic discourse. Liberalism is seen as a threat, so but the boot into the queers…
Is this evidence of genuine concern; or is it a desire to create factions and discord? Given that sexuality was not mentioned in this post or in any of the comments thus far, I think we can safely assume the motivation for this comment! The fact sexuality so readily comes to the fore of some minds is also rather worrying and perhaps says more about a person’s preoccupations as opposed to their concerns…
P.
May 24th, 2011 at 10:24 pm
I have written about Dr Scott on my blog too. I’m an agnostic, but I’d really like to know what you think.
http://www.thanetwaves.co.uk/2011/05/local-gp-in-trouble-for-god-chat.html
June 8th, 2011 at 12:26 am
Unbelievable.
the whole NHs is a failing organisation, with a deficit of millions of pound, with so many doctors that, quite clearly, are totally incompetent and yet, with all these problems, our society finds the money to pay and maintain that bunch of self-proclaimed, false paladins of justice called the General Medical Council.
Instead of crucifying a poor, honest physician who was has done nothing but trying to be help his patient, those GMC people should go after he real problems (like NHS lottery, total lack of services in some areas, hospital managers without any understanding of economics…etc), things that indeed threaten patients’ life and safety.
But, I guess, that would be too difficult for them and surely not as demagogic as preventing doctors from sharing their faith