A doctor accused of rushing people into irreversible hormone treatments and sex change surgery was known as "uncle" by his patients but viewed with concern by colleagues, a disciplinary hearing was told today.
The consultant psychiatrist Russell Reid, 63, of west London, blurred professional boundaries by calling patients his nephews and nieces, James Barrett, of the Charing Cross hospital gender identity clinic, told the General Medical Council.
"It is a sort of boundaries issue. I think that there is being so close to your group of patients that you have kind of lost sight of that," Dr Barrett said.
"I think that if you are in a position of calling your patients your nephews and nieces and being known as Uncle Russell then there is considerable difficulty there. That, I believe, is the case."
He added that an internet search using Dr Reid's name showed he had been likened to a saint and "suggested for canonisation".
Former colleague Donald Montgomery, who worked as clinical director at the gender identity clinic for seven years, said there had been "relief" when Dr Reid had been forced to leave his clinic at the hospital owing to an NHS reorganisation in the late 1980s.
Dr Montgomery, a consultant psychiatrist, told the GMC fitness to practise panel in London that he had been concerned for many years about some aspects of Dr Reid's management of patients.
"I thought that some of the patients that Dr Reid had managed over the years had been at risk of being harmed by his early premature prescription of sex hormones without adequate assessment or a cooling off period, a period of reflection or counselling, or a second opinion from another interested professional," Dr Montgomery said.
On occasions, there had been evidence that Dr Reid had referred people for genital reassignment surgery without a second opinion or without the patients completing a period of eligible real life experience and this "put patients at risk of psychological and social damage", he said. The allegations were made on the sixth day of a 30-day hearing at the GMC in London on charges relating to five patients, covering a period from 1988 to 2003.
Dr Reid, a leading authority on gender identity disorder, has been accused of breaking international guidance in the treatment of the patients. He has denied serious professional misconduct.
The case was brought after complaints were received from four psychiatrists, including Dr Barrett and Dr Montgomery. The fifth complainant is patient F.
The panel was told that one patient, known as patient B, who was referred for sex change surgery in 1989 by Dr Reid, would give evidence that she did not know whether she was a man or a woman any more and felt she was in a "gender limbo".
The case of New Zealand-born Dr Reid has divided transsexual experts and support groups. One of his strongest critics is reportedly a multi-millionaire who had a sex change to become a woman and is now in the process of becoming a man again.
Charles Kane spent several years as Samantha but is now determined to put his female past behind him.
Dr Reid has denied charges of inappropriate care in relation to the patients. He has also denied acting contrary to guidance given in the Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association standards of care.
