Doctor ‘puts career in jeopardy’

Press, 14 March 1984, Page 2

Doctor ‘puts career in jeopardy’

PA Auckland A Whangamata doctor who urged local people to stop a man driving a bus because of a heart condition has been censured and fined by the Medical Practitioners’ Disciplinary Committee. But Dr lan Duncan, who was fined $5OO and ordered to pay $3555 in costs, maintained yesterday that he had acted properly in the public interest. He said he was putting his career in jeopardy to save the lives of schoolchildren. Dr Duncan, aged 28, says that their bus driver — an old-age pensioner and one of his patients — had a diseased heart and could die suddenly while at the wheel of his bus. “I am very concerned for the safety of the 35 or so children whom he drives each day along a road with high bluffs. Sudden loss of control of the bus could lead to multiple deaths or injuries. But today Mr Henry, youthful-looking in spite of his 60-plus years ana triple by-pass heart surgery, took to the wheel unperturbed. For 31 years he had driven schoolchildren on contract and no doctor, fresh out of medical school, was going to push him out of it, he said. He felt better than he did before his operation and was now seeking legal advice about whether to sue Dr Duncan for “prejudicing my character.” Imposing its fine, the medical committee said, “the committee accepts that Dr Duncan was motivated by concern for the welfare of his community, but considers his actions and intervention (in informing members of the public of the driver’s medical history) were both unwise and unwarranted apd amounted to professional misconduct.” The committee said professional confidence could be breached only in the most exceptional circumstances and then only if the public interest was paramount.