BRADLEY WIGGINS SIDEBURNS – MADE OUT OF PUBIC HAIR
A medic who boasted on Twitter he was going to use patient’s pubic hair to give himself Bradley Wiggins sideburns has escaped with a caution.
Under the username ‘Sir Cockhardt’, Paul Nam wrote a series of bizarre updates about his work on the gynaecology ward at the Lincoln County Hospital.
His messages included ‘I was going to save the pubes from the first patient I shaved today and stick them on Wiggins style.’
In another Tweet he added: ‘Working in gynae theatres AGAIN today. I’m seriously considering going gay! The thought of looking at one more aged flange.’
The operating theatre assistant also branded the entire Trust board ‘vandals’, singling out one as a ‘sh*tter’.
A disciplinary panel of the Health Professions Council found his fitness to practise impaired and imposed a three year caution on the keen cyclist.
‘The panel concluded that Mr Nam’s repeated use of Twitter for comments about his workplace and colleagues fell short of the standards expected of a registered operating department practitioner on a number of occasions,’ the panel stated.
‘Mr Nam’s misconduct involved posting tasteless and insensitive tweets over a period of three weeks.’
Elena Elia, for the HCPC said: ‘A member of the theatre team received the tweets and reported them to a matron.’
The Tweets targeted patients, the Trust board and the executive team and included photographs of an ambulance and an operating theatre list.
Nam said he sent the Tweets out of ‘frustration for my predicament’ and ‘his limited career prospects’.
‘It was his way of raising concerns’, Miss Elia said.
‘He was doing this in the public interest to ensure they [the public] were informed of what was happening, although he did state he now regretted doing it.’
Nam had various work-related difficulties at the United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust including issues with the matron, locum doctors, management, problems with reporting matters, training, equipment and hours.
He also breached patient confidentiality by posting a photograph of an ambulance and commenting, ‘casualty busy as ever! I am now waiting in A&E for the victims of light aircraft crash, will keep you posted’.
Nam uploaded a picture of a theatre list showing the names of surgeons and procedures, remarking, ‘think yourself lucky you’re not doing my list’
He admitted all the charges against him, but claimed the Tweets were intended to be humorous.
Nam said the ‘pubes tweet’ was ‘a joke around [Sir Bradley] Wiggins’ sideburns’ and there was no actual patient.
His other tweets included on ‘I’m in 2nd trauma theatre this afternoon, this means we’re doing all the crap 1st trauma theatre doesn’t want to do’ and a reference to a surgeon as ‘mr Vagina-rage you are such a bell-end’.
Nam resigned from the Trust shortly before a disciplinary hearing was due to be held in January 2013.
He told the hearing he was ’embarrassed and ashamed by his actions’, adding: ‘I accept that I got things badly wrong on this occasion.
‘I was partly ignorant of the consequences of using something like Twitter.
‘I felt ashamed really from day one when I was first confronted with it and suspended from the Trust.
‘As far as I was concerned at the time I was just Tweeting to colleagues.
Nam told the panel, ‘I had worked at Lincoln County for about six years and there were incidents with procedure at the hospital that gave me a great deal of concern.’
He said tweeting about a surgeon, ‘mr vagina-rage you are such a b*ll end’ was ‘a sort of backhanded compliment’.
Operating department practitioners perform the important role of supporting patients prior to operations, working closely with surgeons and anaesthetists
Nam was handed a three-year caution order, after his fitness to practise was found to be impaired.
