Dr Peter Newman

Dr Peter Newman 2017-12-09 Person 1 5 0

Despite having had the privilege of working with some excellent doctors in local Teaching Hospitals, my experience as a patient at Harrogate Hospital has left me with a profound mistrust of the medical profession. The saddest fact is that what happened was entirely predictable and preventable. The treating consultant had obvious longevity in his role however in my opinion this did not bring the expected knowledge and experience. In contrast it brought a disturbing arrogance. Suffering from an acute movement disorder, most likely due to the use of or reduction in dose of a medication prescribed for pain relief, an early opportunity was missed to bring my condition under control. Even though this doctor had no experience of my specific response to this medication, he thought it would resolve spontaneously and discharged me. It did not. Over the following three weeks my condition deteriorated further, and regrettably I ended up under the care of this doctor again. He then commenced a treatment regime without offering any meaningful explanation of my condition or of all the treatment options available and the risks and benefits of each. Suffering terribly with side effects and finally after 6 weeks I was reviewed again and inappropriately told to reduce the dose of one of the medications too fast. Unsurprisingly, by the time I attended for my next review, I was experiencing uncomfortable symptoms all well documented to be related to the use of or withdrawal of this medication. I reported these symptoms to this neurologist but in his ignorance, he chose to make grossly inaccurate assumptions about the cause of them and consequently when he decided I could stop this medication completely, again with a reduction in dose far too fast, I suffered the most hideous experience of my life. In fact, throughout my whole illness he was patronising and paternalistic in his dealings with me and repeatedly withheld information. Had I been presented with the full facts I would NEVER have taken this medication. He severely undermined my intelligence and in doing so exposed himself and his speciality of medicine as outdated and old fashioned in its approach to patient care and the management of their treatment plans. In my opinion there was no adherence to the ethics of obtaining valid informed consent to treatment or the concept of patient centred care, shared decision making or patient choice. I will never again have confidence that any symptoms I may report to a doctor will be taken seriously. Regrettably I can feel nothing but utter disdain for this Neurologist for his shameful failure to safeguard my health. In attempting to treat me for a terrible reaction to one medication they subjected me to protracted withdrawal symptoms from a further medication.