Main description:

The doctor-patient relationship is fraught with risk. Patients may be at risk from a doctor who misuses their position of authority, or is unclear where the appropriate boundaries lie. Doctors risk disciplinary or criminal proceedings when this happens. This book aims to address these risks, to assist clinicians in their daily relationships with patients, and to improve patient safety. The authors examine the ethical principles and how these may be taught; prevalence of abuse; regulation and sanctions; management and governance; remediation; and the roles of the different organisations that may be involved, such as the General Medical Council and medical protection societies. This is a practical guide to help clinicians avoid boundary violations and improve patient safety.

Contents:

Foreword; Introduction: mapping the territory; 1. Ethical principles and professional trust; 2. The patient's perspective; 3. Teaching ethics and ethical behaviour to medical students; 4. With the benefit of hindsight: lessons from history; 5. The prevalence of boundary violations between mental health professionals and their patients; 6. Psychiatry: responding to the Kerr-Haslam inquiry; 7. The general practitioner and abuse in primary care; 8. Boundaries and boundary violations in psychotherapy; 9. Sexual therapies: vulnerabilities and boundaries; 10. Obstetrics and gynaecology: a special case?; 11. Nurses as abusers: a career perspective; 12. Medical management: governance and sexual boundary issues; 13. Dealing with offending doctors: sanctions and remediation; 14. Defending doctors: the protection society's experience; 15. Regulation and its capacity to minimise abuse by professionals; 16. The role of the General Medical Council; Appendices: 1. Vulnerable patients, safe doctors: good practice in our clinical relationships; 2. Maintaining boundaries; 3. Other psychiatric codes; 4. Examples of sexualised behaviour by healthcare professionals towards patients or their carers; 5. Fitness to practise cases; 6. Web resources.