Abuse of the Doctor-Patient Relationship

Fiona Subotsky is a Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist, King's College Hospital, London. Susan Bewley is a Consultant in Obstetrics and Gynaecology at St Thomas' Hospital, London. Michael Crowe is a private Consultant Psychiatrist specialising in sexual and relationship therapy, working in London.

• Foreword; Introduction: mapping the territory; 1. Ethical principles and professional trust; 2. The patient's perspective; 3. Teaching ethics and ethical behaviour to medical students; 4. With the benefit of hindsight: lessons from history; 5. The prevalence of boundary violations between mental health professionals and their patients; 6. Psychiatry: responding to the Kerr-Haslam inquiry; 7. The general practitioner and abuse in primary care; 8. Boundaries and boundary violations in psychotherapy; 9. Sexual therapies: vulnerabilities and boundaries; 10. Obstetrics and gynaecology: a special case?; 11. Nurses as abusers: a career perspective; 12. Medical management: governance and sexual boundary issues; 13. Dealing with offending doctors: sanctions and remediation; 14. Defending doctors: the protection society's experience; 15. Regulation and its capacity to minimise abuse by professionals; 16. The role of the General Medical Council; Appendices: 1. Vulnerable patients, safe doctors: good practice in our clinical relationships; 2. Maintaining boundaries; 3. Other psychiatric codes; 4. Examples of sexualised behaviour by healthcare professionals towards patients or their carers; 5. Fitness to practise cases; 6. Web resources.

'This book clearly maps the territory in the complex areas of boundaries between patient and professional (all regulated healthcare professions, not just doctors). Experts are drawn in from general practice, psychotherapy, sexual therapies and nursing; obstetrics and gynaecology; as well as teachers, ethicists, medical managers and healthcare regulators. … The book contains important guidance on the prevention of boundary violations that vulnerable doctors can blunder into, perhaps due to a sometimes toxic combination of over-enthusiasm and naiveté.' British Journal of Psychiatry