So Doctor “ Beth “ Upton is off to pastures new , leaving a large ongoing bill for NHS Fife

Oh FFS. I know that we’re desperate for more doctors in Australia, and we particularly love UK doctors because the training and education is so similar, but are we that desperate?

Be interesting to find out how the local community there reacts to him.

Unfortunately he’ll be legally regarded as female in every way and for access to everything. Anything else would be discrimination and could result in legal action.

Great quote from the CEO of the Women's Forum in the article from The Australian:
Ms Wong said Dr Upton was “not only male, he is a male who has openly disregarded women’s boundaries, privacy and consent”.

At least they're aware and pushing back.

Archive link to the article from The Australian. It's a good article.

https://archive.ph/v80vU

It is also in The Australian newspaper. Cannot report as I do not subscribe.

I do love the Scottish Daily Express's refusal to pander to Upton's preferred pronouns. David Walker, the journalist concerned, was excellent in his reporting throughout the Sandy Peggie tribunal. Other journalists and media take note.

Despicable. No consideration at all that if a female patient requires or requests a female physician that they might be horrified to have Dr U come through the door.

Dr Beth Upton resurfaces in Australia - and is listed as a woman on medical register
https://www.scottishdailyexpress.co.uk/news/politics/dr-beth-upton-resurfaces-australia-37043507.amp

Part of the equation will be the extent to which Beth's was able to gain an easier ride because of his "special status" and his Fife family connections and the extent to which this has affected his professional development and his skills acquisition. If he got on with it and rolled his sleeves up, fair play to him. However my understanding is that the first lesson you need to learn as an F1 is to get the nurses on your side.

Things have changed.

The high levels of unemployment amongst young doctors in the UK, and the exponential growth of private medical schools in Eastern Europe, Asia, the Caribbean and Africa means that there is a worldwide shortage of entry level and training jobs. Patients in the UK and Australia are reasonably unusual in being willing to be seen/operated on by SHOs. In systems where there is an underdeveloped public health system, people who pay expect to be seen by a consultant.

Australia, unlike the UK, gives priority to their own residents, so the plum jobs go to them. There is a tradition of hiring from the UK, and the Australians seem to like our training and language skills, so it used to be easy for Brits to pick up year-long contracts. Essentially working holidays after 7/8 years of slog. It is still reasonably easy to get work in rural areas or in A&E, but competition for more popular career-building experience in major cities is tighter. DD managed to land one, and was told that they had caried out a lot of background research, and that only a third of her peers will not be Australian residents. She expects that half of these will have already worked in Australia for a year or two, as you have to have been working in Australia for a set number of years before you can be considered for training.

The issue now is how you then get back. In the UK and because we do not give priority to UK residents, even locally employed jobs in hard-to-recruit places and unpopular specialities are attracting hundreds of applicants. (As well as opening up our job market to worldwide competition Boris gave expedited family settlement rights to many categories of health workers, which has proved a major pull factor and which is what the current parliamentary immigration debate is about.) There are already quite a few young doctors who went out in the last 2/3 years and are now struggling to get back. DD plans to see how the land lies and if she wants to return, will save so she can afford to take a gap year/Masters to allow time to prepare for UK specialist exams. Sadly the GMC do not automatically recognise Australian specialist training and it can take years to get "equivalence" sorted, during which time you can only work locum contracts in the UK, so training there is only worthwhile if you plan to stay.

All of which is a long way of saying that it all depends on how good Beth is. The "special status" may help a little, but unless he is really good, with good practical skills and great references, he will probably spend the next year on A&E night shifts or in the outback, and finding that he has few other options until he has enough years in to qualify for resident status. It is very likely that we won't see Beth again, but more because the NHS career path is f**ked rather than anything around trans or the case.

Absolutely! It would be "Woman! Know thy place!"

Ts funny cause it is true

As a non AusNZ doctor It’s not hard to get a job in Australia but it’s getting very hard to get on a training scheme. Absolutely the pay and conditions are better, but a lot of UK doctors eventually go back

What he needed was to be told robustly by his supervisors not to be a prat - and if his medical colleagues had really believed he was a woman that is exactly what they would have done.

Ha! Indeed, wouldn't they just @anyolddinosaur , we need to look no further than how they treated Sandie.

I've said from the start that Fife failed both Upton and Sandie. I lost my initial sympathy for him when I learnt he'd been making notes of colleagues from the start. What he needed was to be told robustly by his supervisors not to be a prat - and if his medical colleagues had really believed he was a woman that is exactly what they would have done.

Very true Needmoresleep

I always point out that an extra body is hired in to make everybodys job easier.

The whole being your whole self to work is a mess. Lots of organisation which claims to do this also have a very PC culture and a blame culture. Both create a culture which allows bullying and petty office politic which creates a hostile workplace and thats normally reflected in high staff turnover.

In Fife the staff setting the policy did not have a contractual obligation to strip off their clothes at work. And others had and used private work spaces.

Some of it seems to be about control.

A very large part of it is about control; no matter what disguise it comes in it is designed to have others dancing to his or her tunes, which are always off key.

He would get hurty feelz 🙄

Beyond the biological sex issue there is the question of "specialness".

Are you having to treat some staff with kid gloves, simply because they might use the power that comes with their status. If you challenge their demands, as as NHS Fife should have done, are you opening yourself up to complaint and who is watching your back?

It is the "bring your whole self to work" idea. Many/most people would prefer that their colleagues turned up and did the job without add ons. They don't care about their colour, religion, sexual orientation or gender identity. They want to work with team players to contribute their share. They are happy that there are suitable adjustments for disability or pregnancy and indeed that there is a disabled toilet. They are also happy to acknowledge Chinese New Year and Ramadan, and to make every effort to be sensitive to colleagues diverse backgrounds, and would be quick to support colleagues if there were any obvious discrimination. However at the end of the day it is a job and you expect your colleagues to get on with it, without them keeping notes of minor and perceived slights from a number of colleagues.

A friend has a new colleague, a recent graduate, in their team. This colleague is non-binary (born female.) There was a certain amusement when the NB would correct the Head of Department, someone in their 60s, for using their official name not their NB name. Even established employees are careful about how they phrase any work related disagreement, and do not expect to share anything personal. Those closer in level to the NB would try to fit in with their they/them preferences but are liable to forget when things are busy. The NB is now three months in and a few concerns that have come up that the Head of Department would normally raise to reinforce what has been said by the line manager, in order to help the NBs professional development. However it has become clear that the Head of Department is not going there, thereby making it difficult for the line manager to manage effectively. The graduate will move on in a few months and will become someone else's problem. Without the full career learning that they should have gained in their current position, and without gaining the colleagues and contacts that would provide immediate support, and which might prove useful in the future.

Some of it seems to be about control. A perfectly sweet but slightly anxious young woman, because of her status, can exert control over more senior colleagues. A narcissistic man with a fetish can do similar. Many of us will have come across instances where others have abused their "special" status to gain advantage in the work place. Beth might well have made a good doctor if proper boundaries (use of changing facilities, not treating patients who ask to see a female doctor etc) had been imposed from the start.

And if you objected to Upton being brought to you after you have requested a female doctor it would be you who would be labelled as the problem and bigoted. According to Upton and his handmaiden’s you would be ‘unkind’ which is the worst thing a woman can be apparently.

Yeah, if I really wanted a female doctor and they brought me Upton, I would not be impressed. If I had requested a female it would be because it was something to do with boobs, bum, or undercarriage. Or maternity care. Wouldn't care if it was a sore throat or ear infection etc. But some might.

The head of the ED wanted the long term female employee arrested on who knows what charge for objecting to a male employee in her changingroom.

Then NHSfife troop in a load of idiots to prove there was a contractual obligation for her to provide the male with a stripshow.

None if the medical staff who sided with the hospital could be trusted to put a patient (who wanted SS provision) first.

He stated under oath that if a woman requested a female doctor he would expect a nurse to bring him to the patient and then it would be up to the patient herself to object.

In this situation the hospital are acknowledging that the sex of the practitioner is relevant, and then lying to the patient.

And then the patient is expected to trust these people to provide medical care?

There is also the problem of having 2 medic standing in a treatment area effectively saying here is your only health care option.

The woman in need of specific medical care is being bullied and threatened (more so if she is alone) without a word being spoken. She would have to be stupid not to realise she is not going to get support from other senior staff as this would only happened because of the culture of the whole staff.

Can you not acknowledge the difference between being seen by a male doctor when there is no one else available and that fact being openly acknowledged with the alternative of being gaslit by being told “yes you can have a female doctor” and Upton being brought to you?

Women are not stupid, we understand that there may not be a female doctor available (in which case we may ask for a chaperone) and we certainly know that we may not have female only surgical teams. But we do have rights and we are not support animals provided for the purpose of validation for blokes like Upton. He stated under oath that if a woman requested a female doctor he would expect a nurse to bring him to the patient and then it would be up to the patient herself to object. And I’m pretty sure that he inferred that any objection could only be for bigoted reasons.

This man is no loss to the NHS.

But even at the GP level, it's hard to imagine turning down a medical appointment with the likes of Upton if, say, you have a bad throat infection and probably need antibiotics, but Upton is the only doctor available for the next week.

You may not be able to imagine it, but if a patient has said they only want to be treated by women and the hospital ignores that, then the patient has not given consent to their treatment.

Consent must be informed.

There are many difficult ethical situations where a patient and doctor will disagree, but the solution is not to lie to the patient.