THE FARTING DENTIST

A farting dentist who stank out his surgery with his evil-smelling flatulence has been struck off.

Matthew Walton, 35, found it hilarious to blow off next to colleagues when they were trying to eat their lunch, the General Dental Council heard.

Staff were so disgusted by Walton’s behaviour in the surgery they had to walk out.

He also offended patients by demanding to see their cash before starting work and saying the word ”bollocks” as he belched.

The dentist claimed he could not help his ‘inadvertent’ outbreaks of wind – but admitted a colleague once had to get an air freshener out to mask the smell of his trumping.

Dental nurse Carol Stokes told the hearing how she begged the dentist to stop saying: ‘It was annoying. I didn’t like the smell around the practice and it made us feel sick.

‘I just asked him to stop doing it basically.’

But she told the hearing: ‘He found it funny – if I spoke to him about it he laughed and did it more.’

Fellow nurse Nicola Groom told how Walton liked to belch loudly too – and showed ‘no respect’ for elderly and disabled patients.

He was found guilty of a catalogue of inappropriate and unprofessional behaviour, including belching and farting in front of patients and flicking ‘v signs’ behind their backs.

Panel chairman Valerie Paterson said: ‘The many aspects of your behaviour towards staff at the practice made it difficult for them to work as a team with you, and this was contrary to the interests of your patients.’

The committee also found that Walton’s manner was ‘abrupt’ and patients had a justified perception of the dentist as ‘rude and uncaring’.

Walton had denied many of the charges alleged to have taken place at the Green End practice in Green End, Whitchurch, Shropshire between August 2006 and December 2007.

He apologised for his ‘inadvertent’ blowing off admitted he had walked behind the dentist’s chair to flip ‘v signs’ at patients he disliked.

The dentist claimed that his ‘juvenile’ behaviour was caused by frustration at work.

The GDC ruled that Walton was frequently ‘abrupt and rude’ towards patients while working at the surgery.

The dentist treated patients from poorer backgrounds with disrespect and demanded some show him their money before he would start treatment.

He would also say ‘f***ing hell’ and ‘f***’s sake’ while struggling with difficult extraction, and made rude comments about patients’ ethnic origin, disabilities or employment status..

Walton was found to have behaved inappropriately towards several individual patients, including telling a nervous teenager undergoing a tooth extraction: ‘You will sit and let me do it’.

He told another patient attending an emergency appointment in December 2006 that he had bad breath, commenting it was ‘unfair’ for his partner, and treated him a ‘humiliating manner’.

The committee had also found Walton was ‘routinely rude and sarcastic’ towards his dental nurses, and repeatedly exposed Miss Groom to radiation by failing to warn her that he was about to take x rays while she was in the room.

Ms Paterson noted that dental nurse Ms Groom had frequently left the room for long periods because she could
not cope with his trouser wind.

Walton was also found to have difficulty empathising with patients, who had a justified perception of the dentist as ‘rude and uncaring’, she said, though she accepted that Walton had not always intended to be offensive..

The dentist had accepted making clinical failures in the preparation of crowns for eight patients.

Ms Paterson said Walton had only practised as a dentist for a single day since he left the Green End practice, and had shown limited insight into his failures.

She said: ‘Taking into account all the circumstances, the committee is unable to find sufficient reason for concluding that, if your registration were to be suspended, your circumstances would be significantly different in 12 months’ time.

‘For these reasons the committee had concluded the suspension of your registration would serve no useful purpose and is therefore inappropriate.’

The dentist was also handed an interim ban until the striking off order takes force ‘for the protection of the public and in the public interest’.