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Olivia Burke
A medical tribunal has reached a decision on whether a doctor who slipped out of surgery in the middle of an operation to have sex with a nurse can practice in the UK.
Dr Suhail Anjum's career was left hanging in the balance after his on-the-clock quickie with a woman known only as Nurse C came to light.
A 'shocked' colleague, referred to as Nurse NT, caught the pair in a 'compromising position' in a surgical suite at Tameside Hospital in Greater Manchester on 16 September 2023.
She told hospital bosses that she had stumbled upon Dr Anjum and Nurse C inside an operating theatre, which was being partly used as a storage room.
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The married father-of-three, 44, was 'in the process of tying up the cord of his trousers', while his companion had her 'trousers around her knee area with her underwear on display', the tribunal heard.
The consultant anaesthetist was supposed to be in theatre with a male patient at the time, but had nipped out for a 'comfort break'.
He had asked a colleague to keep an eye on the patient and was gone for around eight minutes in total before returning.
Andrew Molloy, representing the General Medical Council (GMC), previously said: "It is right to say that no harm came to the patient when Dr Anjum was absent from the theatre and the procedure went on without further incident."
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An investigation into the incident was opened by the GMC after Nurse NT reported what she had walked in on to her line manager.
As a result, Dr Anjum was dismissed from his role at the hospital in February last year, and the case was then sent to the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS).
In the wake of the scandal, Dr Anjum returned to his native Pakistan with his family, and last week, he urged the tribunal to give him another chance by allowing him to resume his career in the UK.
He offered his 'sincere apologies to everyone involved', while saying it 'breaks him to pieces every day' when he thinks about how he put the patient he was tending to at risk.
"I have always set very high standards for myself because the job is my passion," the medic said. "I don’t know how and why it happened but I wish I could reverse it.
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"I offer my sincere apologies to everyone involved and I want the opportunity to put this right. It was quite shameful, to say the least. I only have myself to blame. I let down everybody.
"Not just my patient and myself, but the trust and how it would look. I let down my colleagues who gave me a lot of respect."
Describing the incident as a 'one-off error of judgement', Dr Anjum said the romp occurred after the premature birth of his daughter in January 2023.
He said these circumstances 'took a toll on my personal life, my mental health and wellbeing, and my work at the hospital', while he and his wife had 'failed to connect as a couple' at the time.
The tribunal came to a decision about Dr Anjum's fate on Monday (15 September), ruling that the dad would not be sanctioned for the incident.
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It determined that the 44-year-old had 'put his own interests before those of the patient and his colleagues', while saying that Nurse C had the 'potential to distract him'.
"He may not have able to give his full attention to the patient’s care," the tribunal said.
Chairwoman Rebecca Miller said that although the patient did not come to any harm when Dr Anjum left, the consultant anaesthetist's actions were 'significant enough to amount to misconduct that was serious'.
Despite this, she said she was satisfied that he would not repeat his behaviour, saying that the risk of him doing so was 'very low'.
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"The tribunal considered that members of the public and the profession would understand the high level of scrutiny to which Dr Anjum had been subjected, and that a finding of serious misconduct would weigh heavily upon him," Mrs Miller said. "The tribunal was satisfied that this public finding of serious misconduct was sufficient to maintain public confidence in the profession and proper professional standards, and that there was not a necessity to make a finding of impaired fitness to practise for that purpose."
Dr Anjum has escaped without any sanctions being imposed, however, the hearing in Manchester will now reconvene tomorrow (16 September) to decide whether a warning will be issued on his registration.