GP stripped naked as he listened to my heartbeat: Married patient reveals 'secret liaisons' with doctor

By Daily Mail Reporter
Updated: 04:04 EST, 28 August 2009

A doctor who had an affair with a patient used a stethoscope to measure her heartbeat while taking his clothes off with his other hand, a hearing was told.

The married woman - known as Patient A - began the seven-month affair with Dr Michael Rusling, 48, during a routine appointment when she performed a sex act on him on the examination bed.

They then met for weekly sex sessions at her home, with Dr Rusling phoning to check whether the coast was clear.

Dr Rusling, a father of five, is before a General Medical Council fitness to practise panel accused of having sexual relationships with two patients, and a surgery receptionist.

Patient A, a grandmother, told the hearing: 'I had no sex drive before. I told him that I was dead from the neck down about sex.

'When he got dressed he assured me that I was not.'

The affair began after the woman, who is in her 50s, went to the Sydenham House Practice in Hull in September 2006 after she discovered a lump on her stomach.

She told the hearing: 'He unzipped my trousers and started to examine the lump but moved his hand further down.

'I was shocked but I started to laugh and said, "Shouldn't my husband be doing that?" But we ended up on the examination bed - I think he pulled me over there. We did not have full intercourse but we did things to each other.'

Regular visits to the surgery would also be arranged with Patient A particularly keen to grab the last appointment on Fridays as Dr Rusling was 'always running late' and it would be 'awkward' with other patients in the waiting room.

Throughout the affair the grandmother kept a diary - she would draw smiley faces on dates where she had met the doctor and would write M in an inner circle, meaning he was 'great in bed'.

On October 20 she wrote 'what a buzz' after her sexual liaison with the doctor while her husband sat yards away outside the door.

She told the panel: 'That was the day when I referred to my husband, I was really angry at the time.

'The bleeper was not working to call you into the doctor's room so he (Dr Rusling) had to come through.'

She added: 'Dr Rusling was not happy because he asked who I was talking to. I told him it was my husband and he nearly fell off the couch.'

In February 2007 she said Dr Rusling visited her in hospital while his wife was also there recovering from an operation.

'He said he could kill two birds with one stone,' she said.

'Did he?' asked GMC counsel Bernadette Baxter.

'Yes, while his wife was in the theatre,' she replied.

During another appointment, the mother of four said she was ill and Dr Rusling laughed and asked if she had come to him for sex or treatment. She told him: 'A bit of both.'

On another occasion he visited her at home because she had a chest infection.

'He had his stethoscope on my chest in one hand and he was taking his kit off with the other. Then we jumped on the bed and we had sex,' she said.

She said the relationship ended when Dr Rusling was suspended from duty and she later gave a witness statement to the GMC in which she felt pressurised to do so but also 'morally obliged'.

Patient A explained: 'It was the way our relationship started that was wrong. I felt I had to do it, I did not want to do it.'

She said she thought the affair started because she believed Dr Rusling was 'very unhappy' and was not 'getting sex at home'.

Asked about the consequences of the affair, she said: 'Disastrous, totally disastrous. I'm emotionally lost.

'My husband is divorcing me, my daughter is not speaking to me. It could not get any worse.'

But she added: 'I had a good laugh - it was not just about the sex. I really cared about Dr Rusling and still do.'

Dr Rusling is also accused of groping a female employee at the surgery, known as Miss C, after their consensual affair ended.

Miss C told the panel sitting in Manchester the relationship began in late 2004 when she wrote kisses on a staff birthday card sent to him and he approached her about it.
She recalled the first time they had sex was in Dr Rusling's home but it was usually in his consultation room at the surgery.

'I think it was mainly Mondays and Wednesdays. He had a homeopathy clinic then so there was a gap between patients around lunchtime,' she explained.

Miss C said she wanted to end their affair around March 2005 when she learned Dr Rusling's wife was pregnant but they continued seeing each other until four months later.

She carried on working at the practice and there were no problems until she said he started touching her inappropriately shortly after the time his baby was born in September of that year.

Dr Rusling would enter the kitchen area and from behind would either rub his groin on her bottom or grab her breasts, she said.

She remembered telling him: 'I don't think you should be doing that.'

It is alleged such incidents would occur infrequently up to around December 2006.
The matter was then brought to the attention of the other partners at the practice and Dr Rusling left as an employee in March 2007.

A month later he called her when Miss C was named as co-respondent in the doctor's divorce proceedings.

He wanted her to change the dates of the affair because he did not want his wife to find out he was seeing her when she was pregnant, Miss C claimed.

In relation to the alleged groping, Anthony Haycroft, representing the doctor, said: 'Dr Rusling will say he did not consciously do anything and if he did make contact with you it was an inadvertent act on his behalf. Was that right?'

'No,' replied Miss C.

She also denied it was possible she was mistaken on the timescale of the incidents which she agreed regularly took place when they were in the relationship.

Allegations that Dr Rusling threatened to withhold drugs from a depressed patient, known as Patient B, if she refused to have sex with him were dropped.

Dr Rusling admits his conduct in relation to Patient A was inappropriate, likely to bring the medical profession into disrepute, was an abuse of his professional position and was not in the best interest of the patient.

He denies the same allegations in relation to Miss C.

The panel was also told the doctor received a police caution for shoving his wife to the ground following a row at their home in February 2007.

It is alleged Dr Rusling's fitness to practise is impaired because of the police caution and his misconduct.

The hearing continues.

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