A doctor from Glasgow has been struck off after she went AWOL from a busy A&E department to go take a two-hour-long nap in a changing room.
Dr Raisah Sawati was found by a nurse asleep on a bench wrapped in a blanket after colleagues reported her missing from duty at Fairfield Hospital in Greater Manchester.
Staff at the hospital attempted to locate her by way of four Tannoy announcements after checks showed that patients on her rounds required follow-up treatment.
A misconduct hearing heard that two years prior to the incident the 33-year-old was found lying on a bed in a side room with the lights off at another hospital having earlier requested permission to leave the main theatre block to undertake ''audit work'' for a consultant.
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Sawati had also failed a patient who died of respiratory failure at a nursing home, exaggerated her role in the treatment of a 10-month-old baby suffering a cardiac arrest, lied to colleagues about getting time off for study leave and lied about her qualifications in a job interview.
At the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) in Manchester, her fledgling career in medicine was left in tatters after she was found guilty of misconduct, dishonesty and deficient professional performance.
The tribunal was also told that Sawati received criticism over her work during a number of subsequent training placements after graduating in medicine back in 2012 in Manchester.
At Fairfield General Hospital in Bury, she falsely claimed a colleague had agreed to swap shifts with her so she could take time off and claimed to have been the lead A&E doctor treating the seriously ill infant in a resuscitation room when in fact she had only provided a ''supporting role.''
For the General Medical Council, lawyer Mr Paul Raudnitz QC said the doctor had ''deep seated personality issues which do not permit remediation.''
He said: ''There was a potential patient safety issue as Dr Sawati was on duty in A&E and there had been as many as three patients who went beyond the four hours target time for the processing of their cases.
''She was missing for a significant period of time and it was an aggravating factor that Dr Sawati had not signed off treatment for a number of patients and as a result hey could not be discharged.
''Her professional reliability and ability to work collaboratively are in question. If a doctor is not pulling their weight and not providing colleagues within the team the information needed then there may be consequences for patient safety.''
Meanwhile MPTS chairman Dr Deborah Brooke told the hearing: ''During the period Dr Sawati was missing, her patients went unattended and did not have a clinical decision recorded.
''The Tribunal was concerned that nursing staff and the registrar were looking for Dr Sawati to ask her about patients and she was unavailable.
"While no patients came to harm, the possibility of harm to patients will always exist if a doctor goes missing without telling anybody where they are. She was inconveniencing her colleagues which could have had adverse implications for patient care."
To read the full hearing, click here
