Are whistle blowers good or bad?
Chris | October 13, 2009
Client emails me overnight as follows:
“Anonymous letter to the GDC, about our recent ad in XYZ Magazine, where the phrase -
“ABC Dental carries out specialist treatments such as Implants (Dr A) and Orthodontics (Dr B)”
Has been construed as misleading in that we have effectively said that Dr A is a specialist in Implant Dentistry for which there is no specialisation currently within the GDS and that we are implying she is “better” than a normal Implant Dentist (!!) and my fitness to practice has been called to question at a hearing of the GDC in January.
Marvellous.
Speak soon…………….from my prison cell“
Now the fact is – that the advert is incorrect and does contravene guidelines – guilty as charged.
BUT
Is it really necessary for some low-life dentist to go to the trouble of writing ”anonymously“ to the GDC?
(by the way – it has to be a dentist – yes? Surely no member of the public could be bothered or would know/care?).
What’s wrong with picking up the phone to a fellow professional and asking ”could you change that please mate?“
I feel bad because I know this stuff and the client didn’t think to run it past me first – I would have nipped it in the bud.
Maybe I need to communicate better the fact that I do proof loads of stuff for clients.
I’m sure the client has suffered a ruined day/month/quarter, fretting about what will happen at the GDC.
Equally sure that the tax-payer will ultimately bear the cost of a shed-load of bureaucracy to settle matters.
As it happens, my client is one of the nicest and most ethical guys imaginable, running a lovely business with happy patients and team – and working flat out for local charities when he’s not at work – just a super-nice bloke.
Who now has a stressful hearing ahead.
All because some dentist thinks its fair game to blow a whistle.
A bloody gutless back-stabbing wimp with low self-esteem.
Bit of a stinker this one.
The person who has blown the whistle has almost certainly a major inferiority complex and nothing better to be doing. Really not worth wasting energy on. They had obviously never heard of ‘give me it in the belly rather than the back’ and maybe Sean could teach them something.
I am sure the fact that the client is a good guy with a clean record will make it all ok.
Sounds incredibly unfair but it needs to be put down to experience and move on. Otherwise it’s the old addage of wrestling with pigs….
I am not a dentist but rather an accountant who has worked a lot with dentists.
It’s not just your profession which has this bullshit.
I have been subject to a similar incident having send around a circular to businesses in my area, one of which ended up at another accountants office.
My problems were eventually resolved, but it cost me close to £100k in legal fees, a substantial loss of business to my practice (partly because my head was up my backside dealing with it and partly because word got around that have regulator trouble and so was suspect) and 4 years of stress.
My regulator went from the original complaint through every aspect of my life and eventually tried to disapline me for not telling them the reason I had been discharged from the army when I started training as an accountant 13 years previously! (I had had a nervious breakdown)
Why do “professionals” do this to each other? We all seem have the smallest of minds when dealing with our contemporaries!
Several months back we had a similar issue where a really good client of ours (nice bloke and a good dentist) was similarly taken to task about some innocuous wording on his website. This landed him with GDC hearing, loads of cost and no doubt stress. He was also confident that a competitor had “done the dirty” on him but could not prove it. As you say, seems so unnecessary when a simple call to a fellow professional would have sufficed. Nasty………