Knocking Back the Handwash
I have to admire the inventiveness of orthopaedic surgeon Ian Denholm. His attempt to get off a DUI by claiming that he was intoxicated from using too much alcoholic hand wash is impressive. Unfortunately for him, it failed. Apparently you can’t get drunk from that stuff unless you drink it. Not a nice thought.
The judge was very sensible and disqualified Ian from driving for six months, but deferred it until the new year because he is on-call until the 23rd January. It doesn’t say in the article whether that was continuously on-call or shared with another. It made me wonder whether work pressure was partly responsible for this. The specialist systems in the smaller hospitals are now so thin that even the loss of a single surgeon might tip them over. And I wonder how many specialists are near the end of their endurance.
Ian will probably be under the medical council “sick doctor” program, as they take all DUI charges quite seriously (they indicate the doctor may have an alcohol problem). I know Ian from my Invercargill days. He was a good orthopaedic surgeon and it would be a pity to let something like this damage him permanently. I hope this will set him right again.
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Nov 29 08 7:02 am
I’ve probably known Ian even longer than you MacDoc, first meeting him when he was a House Surgeon at Palmerston North hospital in the early 80’s – how time flies! As you note, he is a bloody good surgeon, and at least the “error of judgment” he has made has only had consequences for himself and his family, not for patients as with the celebrated gynaecologist Dr Hassan who drank Wanganui dry!
Nov 29 08 7:39 am
Wow the world is small Ian lived across the road from my parents in Otatara and operated on my mums knee. They were all good mates. He is a v good surgeon.
Nov 29 08 4:34 pm
And here was me thinking about a fluff story oon sunsrise about how too many of us are using hand wash to the dertiment of our health.
Ha, key words for this post, operated severe.
Nov 29 08 6:00 pm
From now on using a handwash may land up you in courtroom.Beware from using handwash