Bawa-Garba: “At rock bottom I had to remember why I wanted to be a doctor”

We need to focus on learning and changing, and if we go down a criminal route we will only create a blame culture, Hadiza Bawa-Garba told the Risky Business conference in London this week.

The trainee paediatrician’s words echoed the newly published findings of the independent review of medical manslaughter cases in the UK, commissioned by the GMC in response to the Bawa-Garba case, which has called for root and branch reform to ensure a “learning not blame” culture that was fair to patients and doctors.1

Bawa-Garba, who appeared through a video link, spoke about going through the current system and the fear that almost overwhelmed her.

Describing what it was like to appear in the dock as a defendant in a criminal court, she said, “I waited for the prosecution to …