Last week, Dr. Ross Ardill became the first doctor ever to face a disciplinary inquiry by the Medical Council of Ireland open to the public. Dr. Ardill’s offence was to use inappropriate language when treating one his patients to whom he recommended getting some ‘rumpy pumpy’ to help her relax and get some sleep.
Language is one of the most powerful tools we have to interact with other human beings, but we should always adapt it to the receptor we are trying to communicate with, be it friends or clients, in a casual environment or a formal situation.
In the case of Dr. Ardill, he suffered from an acute case of unfortunate misjudgment when interacting with his patient. Dr. Ardill explained that he used the ‘childish expressions’ to put patients at ease but his friendly technique didn’t obviously work as expected with this particular patient, as she didn’t feel comfortable with the language used by the GP.
The Medical Council finally found the doctor innocent of the charges but Dr. Ardill now feels the case, widely reported in the newspapers, has damaged his reputation. He also fears he has become laughing stock within his profession; while ‘rumpy pumpy’ is quite definitely out of the prescriptions list for future patients.