London professor struck off for bullying and dishonesty

A British professor of respiratory medicine with an international reputation in asthma research was struck off the medical register last month for bullying and threatening junior colleagues and for misleading investigators who were looking into allegations that he had tried to cover up blunders in a clinical drug trial.

The General Medical Council in London found Robert Davies, former professor of respiratory medicine at St Bartholomew's and the Royal London School of Medicine, guilty of serious professional misconduct.

Dr Jeremy Lee-Potter, chairman of the professional conduct committee, told Professor Davies that the committee was "gravely concerned" at his behaviour. He had threatened and abused a young doctor and tried to persuade him to break the trial code, which was designed to prevent bias, without consulting the drug company sponsoring the trial and contrary to the agreed protocol.

Dr Lee-Potter said that Professor Davies had failed in his duty to give adequate consideration to concerns raised by Crichton Ramsay, his research registrar, and Neil Barnes, a consultant chest physician involved in the trial of a new asthma drug. They had expressed "legitimate concerns about the validity of the measures taken by the laboratory to obtain usable results."

The many testimonials in Professor Davies' support and his evidence about the pressures he faced at the time did not excuse his "deplorable conduct," Dr Lee-Potter added.

Professor Davies was found guilty of threatening that Dr Ramsay's career would be "finished" if he told anyone of the request to break the code blinding the study of the SmithKline Beecham drug Prankulast.

He was also found to have told Dr Barnes that he did not "know a microscope from a fucking hole in the ground" and to have ordered Dr Ramsay out of his office.

Joanna Glynn, counsel for the GMC, said that there was no body, other than the GMC, on which the pharmaceutical industry could rely to regulate doctors' activities in clinical trials. The operation of clinical trials was extremely important for the public. It was "of supreme importance" that those involved in trials could represent their honestly held views without fear.

Earlier, Professor Davies told the committee that he had been "flabbergasted and upset" to learn that Dr Ramsay had secretly taped their conversation. When he had told the registrar he would be finished if he spoke about the professor's request to break the code, it was "in no way a threat to his career."

He said that he had been "extremely stressed" through pressure of work in 1996 and suspected he had been in "a sort of anxiety depression."

A GP who was suspended from the medical register for six months for withdrawing a food supplement from an 85 year old patient was suspended for a further three months this week after failing to turn up for the GMC hearing to decide whether he should be reinstated.

Clare Dyer, legal correspondent, BMJ


studentBMJ 1999;07:394-436 November ISSN 0966-6494