GP suspended for romance with widower

Plymouth-based Dr Judith Ames, 55, accepted a marriage proposal from Robert Owens 19 days after his wife of 34 years died from lung cancer, and moved into his former marital home within weeks, a fitness to practise panel of the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) heard.

The couple, described as “free spirits”, fell in love quickly after Joyce Owens’s death but the relationship breached medical rules, the tribunal heard.

It ruled in July that the GP’s fitness to practise had been impaired by reason of misconduct, and yesterday at a resumed hearing the tribunal decided Dr Ames will be suspended from practising as a doctor for six months.

The panel, sitting in Manchester, found that while the doctor was highly regarded as a good and caring member of the profession, she had also shown a “disregard of the fundamental principles” of good medical practice.

Gareth Davies, chair of the panel, told the doctor, that it was a “serious breach” of the boundaries in the doctor patient relationship.