A GP who punched someone he was sent to help has been handed a two-month suspension.
Respected family doctor Martin Thom lashed out at the man who had collapsed on a Fraserburgh street, apparently drunk or drugged.
Dr Thom, who works at the town’s Saltoun surgery, was fined £360 in November last year after admitting assault – despite still having “no recollection” of his behaviour.
Witnesses said he shoved the 25-year-old man into a wall and hit him twice in the face after apparently fearing for his own safety.
He was responding to a 999 call because there was no ambulance available to attend.
A medical tribunal was told the episode was a one-off and “out of character” and that the GP had apologised for his behaviour.
Dr Thom had taken “genuine and significant steps towards remediation” including stress counselling and anger management and was “held in high regard as a GP in the local area by other professionals as well as by patients, family and friends”, the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) heard.
But though it decided against striking him off, it ruled that the incident was too serious not to impose a short-term ban.
Suspension would “send a clear message to you, the public and the profession about the unacceptable nature of the conduct which gave rise to your conviction”, it concluded.
Assaulting a vulnerable patient was a “breach of a fundamental tenet of the profession”.
It said two months was “the minimum required to address the public interest in upholding standards and maintaining confidence in the profession” while minimising the impact on patients.
He will be allowed to continuing working until the punishment is enforced next month.
Dr Thom conceded his actions were “totally unprofessional, disproportionate and beyond the plea for self-defence”.
But he has raised questions about the support for lone GPs sent to deal with emergency calls.
The tribunal said he had been “nervous because you had previously attended calls where you were not equipped to help, such as when someone was having a heart attack”.
As part of his efforts to come to terms with his behaviour, the tribunal heard that Dr Thom had read a book called The Chimp Paradox and “recognised that you were responsible for the actions of your ‘inner chimp”.
NHS Grampian said it had noted the findings of the report.