A doctor who practised in Wokingham was banned from the profession for a year after lying on her CV.
Dr Monica Barron claimed she was working as a GP between April 2012 and March 2015 when she was actually on maternity leave or doing ad hoc work for a company she set up with her husband, the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service heard.
Her job application, made in March 2018, was successful and she worked as a clinical research physician at MediNova Ltd for almost two years.
In a letter submitted to the tribunal, a representative of Dr Barron accepted her position at her company MRK Medical Services was “strictly limited to giving advice” to four or five clients a month who had already been prescribed medication.
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“Dr Barron therefore did not carry out “ordinary” GP services through MRK Medical Services Ltd in the ordinary sense,” the letter read.
The tribunal found that Dr Barron, who qualified in Romania in 2002, had been “dishonest” in her job application for MediNova and that her claim to have operated as a GP at MRK was untrue.
- They determined that beyond her MRK role, she had:
- Been on maternity leave from November 2012 to June 2013
- Worked as a GP in a private medical practice in Romania between July 2013 and September 2014.
- Studied in the UK between October 2014 and May 2015.
- Worked once more as a GP in a private medical practice in Romania between June 2015 and December 2017.
- Was unemployed between December 2017 and February 2018.
“She had breached a fundamental tenet of the profession and brought the profession into disrepute,” read the tribunal’s report, finding that she was unfit to practice by reason of misconduct.
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“The Tribunal also considered that presenting untruthful information about qualifications, experience and/or employment history in CVs or job application forms represented a general risk to patients.”
Dr Barron had already resigned on January 13, 2020, has not practiced medicine since and relinquished her license in September 2021.
A letter written on Dr Barron's behalf to the tribunal, which ended on February 8, read: “Dr Barron accepts fully that the impression given in the CV was of a more established role as a general practitioner and that she should have been clearer about its limited scope, and also the periods of maternity leave and the parallel work in Romania during the period.”
“In short, it remains Dr Barron’s position that in the period between 2012 and 2015 she was working on an ad-hoc voluntary basis for MRK. Her work was strictly limited to giving advice, and she was not prescribing any medication.
“Dr Barron is cognisant of the impression her CV gave that her role was that of an established private GP. Dr Barron regrets the confusion that has been caused as a result of the fact she was working between Romania and the UK over the time period in question.”
MRK was a means through which Dr Barron could provide private medical services to UK-based patients, the letter read.
Following her move to the UK, Dr Barron was unable to gain entry onto the NHS Performers List for GPs in England but wished to work in a way which also provided the flexibility required to care for her young family, the letter added.
Her initial intention was to provide medical services to Romanian/Hungarian nationals resident in the UK and these patients were undertaking seasonal or contract work and did not speak English.
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