Doctors are often referred to as ‘Gods in white coats’. However, there are cases in which some doctors start to believe they are actually Gods and let this go to their heads. This can end quite badly for the patient, just like it did for Leslie Cuthbert for example, who recently opened up about her terrible experience.
Discover our latest podcast
Doctors took her money for an earlier surgery date
Ian Paterson is just one (of a handful) of the doctors who don’t act with their patients’ best interests at heart. When Leslie Cuthbert started bleeding from her right breast, she went to see her gynaecologist and in order to get an expert opinion about her situation, the woman was referred to a specialist, Dr Ian Paterson.
Back in 2006, he 'discovered' that Leslie had breast cancer. She needed surgery, but the waiting list was quite long and she was told that she would have to wait at least three months for this important operation. The doctor told her that he would be able to get her an earlier appointmentif she gave him money. No sooner said than done, the desperate woman paid the man in the white coat tens of thousands of pounds, but the doctor was a scam artist, which is almost as bad as merely posing as a doctor…
She was very thankful to her ‘fake' saviour
Leslie told The Sun about her experience with Dr. Paterson. It was painful and complicated, but she said she would have done anything to be cancer-free once again:
‘We paid for it ourselves and it was very expensive. […] It was a big surgery and I was in a lot of pain afterwards, but when he told me I was clear of cancer the next day, he was my angel doctor, my saviour.’
But eight years after this life-saving operation, she received a horrible message. Her hospital contacted her saying that she never had cancer and that her painful operation was actually not necessary. Her self-proclaimed lifesaver had simply conned her out of her money. But this woman isn’t the only one to have been treated by this man, and in fact, it turns out he had been doing this for over twenty years.
An outrageous crime
The worst part of all was the physical and psychological pain that the doctor put Leslie and his other patients through. According to The Sun, he probably enjoyed thinking about how many lives he had 'saved' and even today after the truth has finally come to light, he is described by patients as having a ‘God complex’.
But not all women got off as ‘lightly' as Leslie. Some of his patients actually did have breast cancer and the doctor would only partially remove the cancerous tissue to maintain the shape of their breasts.
Some women were operated on several times without ever being completely free of this cancerous tissue and he would even prescribe them with oestrogen, a hormone which actually accelerates the growth of cancer cells. 23 women have died prematurely as a result of his clumsy and reckless treatment methods.
In 2017, the doctor was found guilty of having mutilated 17 of his patients. However, the number of cases that have been unreported is likely to be significantly higher because, after all, this man had been practising medicine in this way for years. He has since been sentenced to 20 years in prison.
