A family doctor who tried to woo a patient with flowers and cheesy chat-up lines after bragging about being a ‘good-looking guy’ has been banned from practising in the UK for one year.
Dr Chris Uzoh, 40, spent six weeks pestering the woman to try and get a date and told her that he had ‘huge earning potential’.
He also claimed to be ‘the best in his medical school’ as well as having written ‘several well cited scientific publications’.
Dr Uzoh, who is a GP from Great Sankey, near Warrington, Cheshire, also sent her 20 text messages after getting her address and phone number from medical records.
Within 30 minutes of the appointment finishing, he texted her saying: ‘Sorry for this text message but I saw you and liked you and thought we could go on a date on the future.
‘I am single and looking for a serious relationship and not intending to mess about.’
He also left the patient a voice mail saying he wanted to ‘hear her voice before he went to work’.
Dr Uzoh later sent her another text saying: ‘I’ve been feeling like a schoolboy meeting a girl he fancied for the first time. I haven’t felt this way in a while.’
Later the woman received a card and flowers at her home along with a further message from Uzoh adding: ‘I wonder how else I would have met you if not this way.
‘My heart is pure, I care, I hope it would be possible to make you mine some day.’
The unnamed patient, who lived alone urged, Uzoh to stop pestering her but he pressed on with his chat-up lines saying: ‘I was trying to be romantic – I did not mean to be creepy. I was excited about you.’
Another text said: ‘How is it possible that a good looking guy who is a doctor, who has a job with huge earning potential, who was the best graduating doctor in his medical school, who started out as a urological surgeon with several well-cited scientific publications, who thinks you beautiful and special, who wants you – and you wouldn’t give him a chance? I’ve been in a Toronto and I couldn’t stop thinking about you.’
The patient eventually complained to Uzoh’s colleagues at the Murdishaw Health Centre in Runcorn and he was reported to the General Medical Council.
The father of two has since quit the UK and is now working in Toronto, Canada.
At the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service in Manchester, Uzoh was suspended from practise in Britain for 12 months after he was found guilty of misconduct.
The incidents began between March and May last year when the woman was booked in for an appointment with Uzoh after complaining of abdominal pain.
The woman – known as Patient A – told the hearing: ‘I was really shocked to get that initial message from him because I trusted him as a doctor.
‘If I got that message now there is no way I would respond. I was in a difficult position particularly at that point so seeing him taking an interest was a nice thing.
‘The next morning I woke up and there was a further text message and voicemail message.
‘I remember I was doing my make up and getting ready for work and I saw that he was calling but I didn’t want to pick up. He left a message saying: ‘Hi, I just wanted to hear your voice before I start my day’.
‘Everyday I looked at my phone there was something from him whether it be a text message, missed call or a voicemail message.
‘As soon as I knew the flowers had been sent I knew that they would be from Dr Uzoh – there weren’t many people who knew my address at the time.
‘I felt sick because I live on my own and nobody knew my address apart from my family and I was scared because he had got my records so what was to say he wouldn’t turn up at my door.
‘That feeling lasted several months. It wasn’t long after that I text him to tell him not to contact me but then five months later he contacted me again.
Christopher Hamlet, the lawyer for the GMC, said: ‘She had not given him her number or any indication that she wished to be contacted by him.
‘He obtained her number by looking at her medical records and sent a series of text messages, some consecutive in number and all sent in pursuit of a personal relationship which was sexually motivated.
‘Patient A was at the time vulnerable. She claims at first she was flattered by these messages, however, in due course he went on to bombard her with messages, voicemails and even sent flowers to her home address.
‘She said she felt sick about what happened and was concerned and scared that he had accessed her records and sent flowers to her home.’
One message sent by Patient A to Uzoh said: ‘As flattered as I was at the time it all got too much too quickly.
‘I feel you went too far with getting my address without my permission and it scared me a little and the thought of someone getting it so easily when I have put my trust in doctors is unnerving.
‘Thank you for the flowers but I would appreciate it if you didn’t do that again.’
Another to him said: ‘You’re being too full on – I’ve only met you once and I was your patient!’
Uzoh was not at the tribunal but he filed a written submission claiming his intentions towards the woman were ‘noble.’
He added: ‘My intention was not to prey on the patient or the patient’s vulnerability. I have always been professional toward my patients and never had any issues with NHS England or the GMC.
‘I regret my actions and I apologise for all the stress this may have caused the patient.’
Panel chairman Mrs Jayne Wheat said: ‘It is important that patients have trust in their doctors and in the confidential nature of their medical records, and it is seriously improper for a doctor to seek to pursue a relationship of this kind with a patient, the more so when he persists in it beyond the point when the patient has made clear that his approaches are unwelcome.
‘While the tribunal has found that Dr Uzoh’s behaviour was sexually motivated, there was no evidence that his intentions were obscene or unlawful.’
