A doctor who assaulted nurses and police officers as her life spiralled out of control during her alcohol addiction has lost her appeal to return to work. Karen Clark went from being a top A&E specialist to being struck off due to her alcoholism and and subsequent violence. She has now been suspended from practicing medicine for another 12 months following a Medical Practitioner Tribunal Service (MPTS) ruling.
As her life spiralled out of control, she attacked four nurses trying to treat her at Crosshouse Hospital in Kilmarnock. She also assaulted police offices, was found drunk behind the wheel of her car, and in possession of cocaine.
Clark was working as a senior registrar in the emergency department at Glasgow Royal Infirmary when her life spiralled out of control. She was jailed for a total of nine months at Kilmarnock Sheriff Court in April 2015. The jail sentence was imposed after she admitted assaulting the four nurses and four police officers during separate incidents in July 2014. She also pleaded guilty to two counts of threatening and abusive behaviour in April 2014, reported GlasgowLive.
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In November 2017 she was jailed for eight months for breaching community payback orders imposed for theft and housebreaking and a sheriff warned her she would end up dead if she didn't deal with her alcohol problem. The MPTS initially suspended her in 2016 and her bid to be allowed to return to medicine was thwarted last year when it was extended by seven months after a review hearing ruled her fitness to practice remained impaired.
And after yet another a hearing last Friday the MPTS agreed to continue her suspension for a further year. The medic has previously detailed her fight against alcohol addiction in a blog titled 'Karen Clark: a young female doctor shares her journey into recovery from addiction'. She described how she became addicted to alcohol in her 20s and had spells in rehab after her life began to spiral out of control.
She wrote: "I am Karen. I am an alcoholic and most likely an addict. My substance of choice is alcohol. It has taken me to a place that I can only describe as hell.
"I am a medical doctor (emergency medicine). I discovered alcohol when I was 15. I can only describe taking that first sip as the most amazing euphoric feeling I thought was possible.
"My alcoholism really took off in my 20s. I functioned for a long time. In the past year I have been in accidents, horribly compromising situations, I have had countless hospital detoxes."
Clark graduated in medicine from Dundee University in 2006 and has worked at a number of other NHS hospitals in Glasgow, Dumfries and Ayrshire during her career.
