Legal issues
childcare responsibilities was relevant context which was ‘capable of decreasing the level of risk to public protection ’.1
Commentary
In this case, the falsification of a patient record was key in leading to the outcome of suspension. Medical records are legal documents which are relied upon by other professionals to be accurate. An inaccurate medical record presents a clear risk to patient safety and undermines the trust that the public place in doctors as a profession. In regulatory proceedings such as those
before the MPTS, dishonesty cases are among the most serious that will be heard. While there are many levels to dishonesty, it is rare in my experience for a dishonesty case to mean that a sanction lower than suspension will be imposed. The guiding case law on dishonesty states
that ‘…findings of dishonesty lie at the top end of the spectrum of gravity of misconduct…’ and that ‘Dishonesty will be particularly serious where it occurs in the performance of a doctors duties…’.3
Misconduct involving personal integrity
that impacts on the reputation of the profession is harder to remediate than poor clinical performance.4 In the legal profession, there is almost no comeback from a dishonest act, even if it is a one off event. In the medical profession, while still exceptionally serious, it is accepted that there may be the possibility to return depending on the individual circumstances of the case. Dr. Eisenhauer’s case, perhaps unexpectedly
to those of us who appear in such cases, became a talking point for how parents are failed by current systems. Following the finding by the MPTS, a
change.org petition5
emerged
supporting Dr. Eisenhauer and arguing that the punishment ignored the realities of working parents, particularly those in the NHS. An article in The Times titled, ‘That GP isn’t the only woman to fib about childcare. I did it too ’,6
described the idea of ‘childcare panic’
when arrangements go wrong. Many working parents will recognise that emotion, particularly when illness or last-minute disruption makes it difficult to balance work and care. However, this case was not one of those moments. I expect most of the social media commentators had not read the full facts of the case, and certainly didn’t appreciate the level of dishonesty involved, but the case did spark a conversation about how much public perception, a key part of the test for imposing sanctions on healthcare professionals, relates to the
reputation of the profession. The public, it appears, saw this sanction as
part of a wider message: that the systems in place in the UK do not support parents. Online commentary also concluded that by suspending the GP for five months, her surgery would incur costs hiring a locum to replace her and she was effectively fined five months wages for her conduct. At a time when GPs are in short supply in the UK, this decision struck a chord with many. While it is absolutely true that dishonesty cases have a severe impact on the reputation of the profession, there may be cases where this is not the overriding factor and where, a consideration of not only the individual circumstances but the wider societal pressures which led to be the behaviour should be considered.
Dishonesty attracts special concern in healthcare regulation because medicine relies on trust at multiple levels: between doctor and patient, between colleagues, and between the profession and the public. A false record is more than a private lie. It can distort clinical continuity, undermine the reliability of patient notes, and call into question whether the doctor can be trusted when unsupervised. For this reason, the healthcare regulators (of which there are many) typically treat dishonesty as a potentially serious threat to public protection, not only because of any possible direct patient harm but because honesty is bound up with confidence in the profession and the maintenance of proper standards. It is generally held that dishonesty is an attitudinal issue which is hard, if not impossible to remediate. At the same time, contemporary guidance
has moved away from treating all dishonesty as automatically career-ending. The GMC’s revised
60
www.clinicalservicesjournal.com I October 2026
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