The most serious allegation in rugby’s fake blood scandal was that Tom Williams’ lip was deliberately cut after the game in order to make the faked injury look realistic.
It is unsurprising then, that the General Medical Council have decided to investigate the conduct of Dr Wendy Chapman in the affair. Whilst the rest of the scandal matters only to the rugby world, the question of medical ethics is of greater concern, and it is worrying that a doctor was able to be pressured into harming a patient (albeit in a minor way), to help her employer. Dr Chapman was clearly put under a lot of pressure in a hostile and rushed situation, and took action at the behest of the player himself, but if there is one area of that saga that must not be repeated, it is this, otherwise it is a slippery slope from here on in.
Hopefully other medical professionals in the sporting world have taken note, and will learn the important lesson from Dr Chapman’s case. After all, although it would be nice to think that those involved had a higher duty to the game of rugby, in truth only the doctor had a formal duty to anyone other than her employer.
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