WATKINS: DOZY DOCTOR CLEARED OF MISCONDUCT
A doctor who fell asleep at work has been cleared of misconduct after a tribunal found the medication he was taking made him drowsy.
Dr Douglas Watkins admitted nodding off during a morning meeting on the Kershaw Unit at NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde on 18 September 2012.
The Glasgow University graduate told the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service he woke up after dropping his pen.
The medic was cleared of napping for several hours the same afternoon after saying he joked he had just woken up out of embarrassment for his earlier conduct.
Dr Watkins, who said he ‘always looked dishevelled’, was also cleared of taking tablets of the anti-anxiety drug Diazepam for himself from a cupboard in the unit.
A fitness to practise panel, in Manchester, heard that at the time of the sleeping incident Dr Watkins had been taking medication that made him drowsy.
The MPTS panel ruled that the doctor’s actions did not amount to misconduct.
Panel chairman Sheila Hollingworth told him: ‘In all the circumstances, the panel considered that, whether taken individually or together, the facts found proved did not amount to misconduct.
‘Accordingly, the panel determined that your fitness to practise is not impaired by reason of misconduct.’
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