GMC suspends surgeon for plagiarism

A consultant surgeon who plagiarised 12 assignments on a distance learning course for the postgraduate certificate of medical education has been suspended from practice for four months by the General Medical Council.

Gordon Shepard, a trauma and orthopaedic surgeon at Royal Bolton Hospital, was a member of the specialist training committee of the North Western Deanery when he plagiarised the work for the University of Dundee course which had previously been submitted by another student.

His dishonesty was discovered when he left the name of the student on a piece of …