I’ve been seeing all this guff in the media over the last two days about Dr Glenn Sterling… he’s been my gynaecologist now since about Dec 1999 and he was the IVF specialist that helped me have Angel. I’ve been through so much with him, that I have often felt he knows more than anyone else just how much bullshit I have been through in trying to conceive. I have often thought he knows and appreciates the toll it has taken on me even better than Mr K … because he’s been there every step of the way. I can’t count the number of times I have cried on his shoulder, how many hugs he has offered or how often he has taken my hands in his and told me everything would eventually be okay. He is simply the most caring, and genuinely empathetic doctor I have ever met, and I hate to see him as distressed as he has been in the media over the last few days.
Yes… he made a mistake. Did anyone get dead from it – no. Some doctors make mistakes and accidentally kill their patients ….. do they automatically get suspended from practicing medicine ??? I understand the obligation of our doctors not to take advantage of their patients, but at some point, we have to say – the two of them made an ill advised leap from patient and doctor to become intimately acquainted, and is it any of our fucking business?
I’ve been on copious quantities of IVF hormones (numerous times) just like the patient he got involved with, and they might make some people vulnerable, and they might make you moody, and they definitely make you combattive, but I can honestly say they don’t seem to impair your judgment or diminish your decision making capabilities?!?? I mean can you imagine if how I’d fair if I robbed a jewellery store, or something and then claimed I was vulnerable and confused because I was pumped full of Puregon and Crinone… wonder how far that would get me!
I know I’m supposed to be condemning his actions like everyone else – he violated the patient./doctor relationship, but the truth of the matter is I couldn’t give a shit how many of his patients he was screwing…. cos interesting social choices aside…. Glenn is one of the truly good guys. He really is. Other people can have a lapse in judgment in getting intimately entangled at work and no one gives a shit. But for him, he gets sued, dragged through the courts and has his practice suspended. Everyone… and I mean EVERYONE… has indiscretions in their past… no one is squeaky clean… I can’t help feeling sorry for him… and I can unequivocally say that none of this has in any way, shape or form diminished my respect for him as a friend or as a doctor.
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Doctor barred for affair
13 April 2007
AN IVF specialist who had an affair with a married patient having trouble conceiving has been suspended for six months. Glenn Sterling, 41, one of Queensland’s top gynaecologists, publicly apologised yesterday after pleading guilty to unsatisfactory professional conduct at a hearing of the Health Practitioners Tribunal. The Queensland Medical Board prosecuted Dr Sterling, who heads Brisbane’s City Fertility Centre, after it was revealed he had had a sexual relationship with the patient between December 1999 and February 2000.
After the hearing, at which his registration was suspended for six months, a shaken Dr Sterling said: “I’m very sorry for what’s happened.” The patient, who cannot be named, had had difficulties conceiving with her former husband so she consulted Dr Sterling. They began an affair, having sexual intercourse on six occasions.
She conceived a child in January 2000 and did a “home” DNA test with a swab taken from her former husband’s mouth. She said it showed he was the father of her baby boy. The woman ended the affair when her husband found out about it – on the day she told him she was pregnant. The husband is suing Dr Sterling for $250,000 in damages.
“I was very confused at the time it was going on,” said a shaking and teary Dr Sterling, who is now married with two children. “In retrospect there is no doubt it was entirely inappropriate. I accept full responsibility for what I have done.” Dr Sterling agreed that he knew the patient had experienced an abnormality of the cervix and was taking hormones at the time and that it made her more “vulnerable”.
The medical board’s barrister, Ralph Devlin, said the case related to a “deeply personal area of medical practice”.”(It was) at the top end of misconduct this tribunal would see,” Mr Devlin said.
When questioned about the patient specifically asking for the “last appointment of the day”, Dr Sterling said he didn’t recognise what she was doing. “No, I didn’t,” Dr Sterling said. “I look back and I regret it was so.” He also admitted the affair was “a personal pursuit”. Dr Sterling said he felt more could have been done in his training to alert him to the consequences of such behaviour. “I accepted some time ago what I did was wrong and I’m not afraid to tell people (young medical professionals),” he said. “It hurts to tell them … but if you can prevent one person getting into this position, why not?” Dr Sterling said he no longer saw patients without another staff member present.
In a statement, the woman said Dr Sterling did not use his position to exploit her and that the relationship was based on mutual attraction. Judge Kerry O’Brien said the affair was “well below the standard expected by the public” and Dr Sterling’s peers.
Additional reporting: AAP
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