By Gee Harland - This Is Oxfordshire News - 16.02.2024 [Peter - Rubin] - [UK]
AN Oxfordshire GP who was almost struck off after having sex with a patient has had his second suspension revoked.
Dr Peter Rubin, a senior GP and sole partner at Clifton Hampden Surgery near Abingdon, was placed on an interim suspension by an independent medical tribunal on October 12 last year.
Details were not released about why the Dublin-trained GP had been suspended but earlier this month the interim suspension was revoked. Dr Rubin was first suspended in 2014 while he was working at the Woodlands Medical Centre in Didcot, which he joined in 1998, eight years after qualifying.
It emerged that the doctor had had sex with a patient in his GP consultation room on Christmas Eve 2007. A Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service then heard that the married man began bombarding the woman with texts and buying her gifts.
The personal texts continued until 2012 when the woman complained after Dr Rubin forcibly tried to remove her trousers during a consultation in July 2012, it is alleged. It was also heard that while prescribing another woman a contraceptive pill, he asked her to kiss him and allowed her to kiss him on the cheek.
He was suspended for 12 months and had to attend a review hearing to return to work.
The General Medical Council website now states that Dr Rubin is now ‘registered with a licence to practise.
If you have been affected by any of the issues raised in this article, you can contact Dignity4Patients, whose helpline is open Monday to Thursday 10am to 4pm.
Dignity4Patients Commentary: While a doctor who has spent many years training to be a health care professional has a right to work. Does his right to employment trump a patients rights to safe health care? When a doctors actions repeatedly put patients at risk of sexual abuse, shouldn't the patient always come first? Perpetrators should be removed from the healthcare system with immediate effect to maintain public trust, reputation and stop abuse from happening to others.