Patient group urges language guidance for GPs

DOCTORS should undertake communication refresher courses and be able to access industry standard guidebooks to appropriate language when dealing with the ill, a patients’ group said yesterday.

Patient Focus made its comments following the first public hearing before the Irish Medical Council’s Fitness to Practise Committee on Wednesday, at which a GP was cleared of professional misconduct for using terms such as “willy-bits” and “rumpy pumpy” when dealing with a woman patient.

The committee found the phraseology used by Dr Ross Ardill of the Custom House Medical Centre in central Dublin was “insensitive and inappropriate”, but ruled that he was not guilty of professional misconduct.