Legal issues


approach to minor violence and dishonesty,7 announced in 2024, explicitly recognised that dishonest conduct varies in seriousness and that decision-makers need flexibility to close or resolve lower-risk matters proportionately where there is no current and ongoing risk to patients or public trust. The newer MPTS guidance,8


in force from November 2025, also


seeks structured and proportionate assessment by asking tribunals to evaluate seriousness and risk rather than applying rigid formulas. Importantly, public opinion and public confidence are not the same thing. Tribunals are under a legal duty to protect, promote and maintain public confidence in the profession, and plainly that does not mean they should simply mirror whatever view is the loudest on social media or in newspaper comment sections. Public confidence means asking what sanction, if any, is needed to sustain justified trust in professionals and professional standards. A tribunal may therefore reach a conclusion that is unpopular in the short term if it considers that failing to mark dishonesty would do greater long-term damage to trust in doctors as a whole profession. From that perspective, the suspension imposed on Dr. Eisenhauer can be seen as a relatively sympathetic outcome, while holding firm that falsifying appointments and medical records cannot be trivialised. However, that is not to say that public opinion is irrelevant. Regulatory legitimacy depends partly on whether the public can understand tribunal reasoning as fair and proportionate. In this case, a sympathetic reaction appears to have stemmed not from indifference to dishonest conduct but from a competing collective empathy. If large sections of the public perceive the disciplinary response as blind to those pressures (such as those faced by working parents) that too may erode confidence, not in doctors, but in the fairness of the regulators. This case shows that dishonesty does


not occur in a social vacuum. Public support for Dr. Eisenhauer reflected wider recognition that working parents in Britain face a childcare system that is expensive and unforgiving. Recent evidence shows that childcare remains a major barrier to women’s labour market participation and career progression. The House of Commons Library noted that expanded childcare entitlements are intended to help parents, especially mothers, return to work or increase their hours,9


Responsibility10


while the Office for Budget estimated the reforms


could bring about 60,000 more people into employment by 2027/28. These figures show


This case shows that dishonesty does not occur in a social vacuum. Public support for Dr. Eisenhauer reflected wider recognition that working parents in Britain face a childcare system that is expensive and unforgiving.


that childcare constraints are structural and systemic issues. The Working Families’ 2025 Index11


reported


ongoing difficulties with flexible working, parental leave and affordable childcare, with six in ten parents saying childcare costs strain their finances. Research also describes working mothers as carrying a heavy mental load and often using annual or unpaid leave to manage last-minute childcare. This does not excuse


dishonesty, but it helps explain why many saw Dr. Eisenhauer’s misconduct as arising from a “predictable challenge that many professionals face ”1


as something that is the problem that


needs addressing, rather than one individuals conduct. Was the sanction proportionate? There were


clear aggravating features: the conduct was deliberate, involved more than one dishonest act, included the falsification of patient records,


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