Reprint
TV psychiatrist ‘unfit to practise’
PA News, June 20 2008
Celebrity psychiatrist Dr Raj Persaud faces being struck off after the General Medical Council ruled that his fitness to practise was impaired.
A GMC panel ruled on Thursday that he had brought his profession into disrepute after he admitted passing off other scholars’ work as his own for a book and several articles he wrote.
The panel, sitting in Manchester, decided that his actions meant his fitness to practise was impaired. It will now decide whether to strike him off the medical register.
The doctor, famed for his appearances on the television chat show This Morning and on BBC Radio 4’s All In The Mind programme, admitted plagiarising the work of other experts.
But he had denied his actions were dishonest and liable to bring his profession into disrepute.
Dr Persaud was accused of plagiarising material for his book following a Sunday Times investigation in 2006.
The book was an anthology of the “100 most sick people in the history of psychiatry” and was intended to revive an interest in psychiatric patients’ case histories.
Chunks of prose, apparently written by Dr Persaud, were actually the work of other authors. He failed to attribute the so-called “stolen words”.
Dr Persaud said that at the time he believed he had sufficiently acknowledged other authors’ work. He obtained permission to quote them in his book and included their names in the book’s acknowledgements section.
Dr Persaud, who is a visiting Gresham Professor for Public Understanding of Psychiatry and a fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, said: “It wasn’t my intention to pass off other people’s work as mine.” He apologised repeatedly throughout the four-day hearing for his actions.