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Leading medic demands justice for Shipman

Richard Horton, editor of the widely respected medical journal The Lancet, is demanding the posthumous restoration to the medical register of grandmothers' favourite Harold Shipman.

Dr. Horton argues in the current issue of the sawbones' tabloid that the decision by the General Medical Council (GMC) in February 2000 to erase Dr. Shipman from the register "was perverse and plainly disproportionate to the offences committed".

Dr. Harold Shipman was convicted in January 2000 of murdering 15 of his elderly patients. A subsequent investigation found that the final death toll was likely to have been nearer two hundred.

"Dr. Shipman began practising as a GP in 1974," says Dr. Horton in his editorial, "which means that he would have used his medical skills to treat some 50,000 patients over the course of his career. Even if the man murdered 250 of his patients, this represents only one half of one per cent of his total caseload. It is important to recognise that these people would have eventually died even without Shipman's intervention. Shipman's good work manifestly outweighed any harm he may have done." Horton added: "I am deeply concerned that the way in which the GMC dealt with Harold Shipman will deter others from pursuing a career in general practice."

Dr. Horton is no stranger to controversy having made a similar high profile intervention in defence of paediatrician, Professor Sir Roy Meadow. Professor Meadow was found guilty by the GMC of serious professional misconduct and struck off the medical register for giving misleading "expert" evidence which contributed to the wrongful conviction of Manchester solicitor, Sally Clark, who spent three years in prison for the killing of her two sons.

A spokesman for Dr. Horton told The Rockall Times: "It is outrageous that Dr. Shipman and Professor Meadow, both pillars of the medical establishment, should be treated in this high-handed and unfair manner by their own professional body. Clinicians deserve the public's unqualified support and unconditional respect whatever their mistakes. There has been a deeply worrying trend over the past 10 years for the doctor/patient relationship to be turned on its head, the fashionable view now being that the doctor is there for the patient rather than the other way around. It is crucial that this misperception stops now if the public is to regain confidence in the infallibility and God-given skills of those fortunate enough to be chosen to pursue a career in the medical profession."

Previously

• Professor Roy Meadow drama wows West End
• National treasure Meadow put out to pasture
• Surgeons cast doubt on recapitation claim

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