A hospital worker "tweeted" on Twitter that he intended to use pubic hair shaved from a patient to stick on his face and create the famous sideburns sported by cyclist Bradley Wiggins.
Paul Nam used the pseudonym "Sir Cockhardt" to tweet: "I was going to save the pubes from the first patient I shaved today and stick them on Wiggins-style", the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) was told.
Nam, who was working at hospital in central London as an operating department practitioner, posted the tweet on 1 August 2012 – the first of a series on the site before a member of the operating theatre team raised the alarm and Nam was suspended in September that year.
The hospital heard of other tweets posted by Nam under the pseudonym, including: "Working in gynae theatres AGAIN today. I’m seriously considering going gay! The thought of looking at one more aged flange."
He also posted a photograph on Twitter of the hospitals trustees with an accompanying comment: "Bunch of Vandals except top right, No, he’s a complete *******."
In addition, Nam breached confidentiality by posting a photograph of an ambulance and commenting: "Casualty busy as ever! I am now waiting in A&E for the victims of a light aircraft crash, will keep you posted." He also tweeted a photograph of a theatre list showing surgeons’ and anaesthetists’ names and procedures with the comment: "Think yourself lucky your (sic) not doing my list."
Nam, who was present for a disciplinary, admitted posting the tweets and further admitted misconduct.
His lawyer, Lee Gledhill, told the panel members that it was up to them to decide whether his misconduct amounted to his fitness to practise being impaired.
An administrator for the hospital said Nam accepted that he had posted the tweets and had apologized for them in a letter he sent once an internal investigation was under way.
He attributed his behavior to "frustration for my own predicament", including his "limited career progression" at the trust. In relation to the Wiggins tweet, she said Nam had commented: "There was no actual patient, it was just a joke around Wiggins’ sideburns."
The hospital was told that Nam, who began working there in April 2007, resigned before a disciplinary hearing in February last year.
The disciplinary hearing, which took place in his absence, found that had he not resigned, he would have been dismissed, the panel said.
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