Junior doctor is cleared of wrongdoing after patient "misremembered" events.

Abstract

A junior doctor who was accused of wrongly telling a patient that he had cancer has been exonerated after a medical practitioners tribunal found that the patient had become flustered at the mention of the word “cancer” and misunderstood the doctor’s comments. Richard Schofield, who qualified in 2011, waited nearly three years for his hearing, only for the General Medical Council’s case against him to swiftly unravel. The two expert witnesses, one for the GMC and one for Schofield, wrote in a joint statement, “The experts agree that in their experience it is common for patients of all ages, when faced with ‘bad’ news (including, for example, the possibility that they may have cancer), to become less receptive to receiving information. Both experts have witnessed this phenomenon in their working lives.” Schofield, …