PHARMACIES are often at the heart of the communities they serve and it's only natural that from time-to-time the pharmacist-patient relationship slips into a more personal friendship.
However, when it comes to relationships, it's important that lines are not crossed as one Scottish pharmacist has learned the hard way, British news website metro.co.uk reports.
Michelle Thomson told a General Pharmaceutical Council hearing in London that she had "befriended" a patient she met in the pharmacy she was working in and the pair began to exchange "racy" text messages and meet up socially.
"There was a lot of tongue-in-cheek humour and sexual banter too," she told the hearing.
"I knew from an outsider's perspective this behaviour could be classed as unacceptable.
"I naively never considered the consequences."
However, she denied the relationship ever went any further than friendship, which the male patient refuted, claiming the pair had an affair, which he alleged ended when he had finished laying a patio in her garden.
The case came to light after the patient told his GP that he had been "used and abused" by the pharmacist.
Thomson was found to have slept with the man at her home at least once, and has been suspended form practising as a pharmacist for 12 months.
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