Tarring consultants with the Ledward brush

Pity the poor consultants. No sooner do they recover from the battering given to them by the media over their inability to diagnose cancer of the tongue in a 41 year old man (20 May, p 1414) than they receive a new thrashing over the inquiry into disgraced surgeon Rodney Ledward, who botched operations on scores of women. “The gods who fell and betrayed our trust in medicine” was how the Mail on Sunday described the consultant body after the report was published. “Ledward is an Establishment figure … whose disgraceful behaviour was allowed to continue … in the full knowledge of powerful figures in the profession. The case destroys the image of doctors as a totally respected elite whose judgement is beyond question,” Peter Dobbie wrote in that paper.

Never slow to take advantage of a passing bandwagon, the politicians soon weighed in against the profession. …