GP guilty of poor professional performance

A CORK-BASED GP has been found guilty of poor professional performance over his treatment of a patient while working on call for SouthDoc in 2009.

The Irish Medical Council’s Fitness to Practise Committee yesterday found Dr Saleem Sharif, who runs his own practice in Ballyphehane, guilty of poor professional performance on two counts relating to his visit to the home of Barry Murphy at Peacock Row, North Monastery Road in Cork on May 17, 2009.

The IMC had investigated Dr Sharif’s conduct following a formal complaint made by the patient’s wife, Josephine Murphy over the doctor’s treatment of her husband who had a history of cardiac problems.

Dr Sharif, 52, who comes originally from Pakistan, with an address at Eagle Valley, Wilton, Cork, had denied a total of eight charges of alleged professional misconduct and/or poor professional performance.

The IMC committee said it accepted the evidence of the Murphy family that Dr Sharif had failed to carry out any treatment of Mr Murphy in his bathroom where he had collapsed and had insisted that the patient was carried into a bedroom for examination.

The committee’s chairperson, Dr Richard Brennan, said such conduct amounted to poor professional performance.

The committee has recommended to the Irish Medical Council that the appropriate sanction should be to “advise” Dr Sharif about his conduct.

Dr Brennan said the committee had taken into account it was a single episode of poor professional performance that was at “the lower end of the scale” and which had no adverse consequences for the patient.