"Deplorable behaviour" - Doctor struck off after stripping naked in QA toilet and propositioning colleague
A doctor has been struck off the medical register after he was found to have stripped off in a toilet cubicle and propositioned a colleague.
It was one of several sexual harassment incidents reported against Dr Samuel Stefan by three junior colleagues when he was working at Queen Alexandra Hospital between August 2022 and February 2023.
The Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) panel heard how Dr Stefan, a colorectal surgeon, had been chatting to a colleague online (although they were unknown to each other) and had arranged to meet in a toilet. The man who was meeting him there believed it to be a mutually convenient place and did not plan to have sex with Dr Stefan.
The panel heard how he was “shocked, numb and scared” when a toilet cubicle door opened and the doctor beckoned him over completely naked.
In other incidents, Dr Stefan was found to have tried to kiss another colleague and exposed himself to him, and also repeatedly tried to touch the thigh and genitals of another colleague while they were on the hospital wards.
The tribunal was “particularly concerned” by the timeline of the events with the incidents taking place a matter of months after he was under investigation for the incident in the toilet.
It concluded that Dr Stefan’s conduct “fell far below the standards expected of a doctor” and fellow members of the medical profession would consider his “behaviour deplorable”.
Dr Stefan did not attend the tribunal and was not represented. He has not apologised for the incidents with the panel hearing there had been “no insight, remorse, remediation, or engagement with the GMC (General Medical Council) or the Tribunal”.
The tribunal concluded immediate erasure from the medical register was necessary to protect members of the public.
It said: “The Tribunal was of the view that public confidence would be undermined if Dr Stefan was permitted to practise unrestricted, given its finding that Dr Stefan’s conduct was incompatible with continued registration, the serious nature of his misconduct, and the assessed risk of repetition.”
Further details on the tribunal’s decision can be found here.