Indian doctor in UK admits to plagiarism

London, June 17: Media psychiatrist Professor Raj Persaud has admitted to the General Medical Council that he plagiarised articles from other academics.

The doctor, who is famed for his regular appearances on daytime TV shows such as This Morning, admitted plagiarising four articles for his 2003 book 'From The Edge Of The Couch'. A General Medical Council misconduct hearing in Manchester was told that Dr Persaud also admitted passing off other scholars' work as his own in articles published in journals and national newspapers, The Telegraph reported.

He said he had not been dishonest and argued that he had not brought the profession "into disrepute".

The GMC panel heard that allegations of plagiarism against Persaud were first made in a Sunday Times article published in April 2006.

The article alleged that sections of Persaud's book, published three years earlier, were plagiarised from academic articles.

At the time Persaud was a consultant psychiatrist for the South London and Maudsley NHS Trust, a position he still holds.

rofessor Raj Persaud is, for many, the public face of psychiatry, with numerous appearances on radio and television.

One of his gifts is the ability to make some of the concepts of psychiatry easily understood by the public, and much of his work has been themed on their most common preoccupations and worries.

Most people know him from the This Morning show on ITV, where he first appeared in 1994, alongside Richard Madeley and Judy Finnigan, offering advice to viewers on the phone.

For the BBC, he has presented, among others, the psychology and psychiatry programme "All in the Mind".

Born in Reading, he attended the private Haberdashers' Aske's school, then University College London.

He was to become one of Britain's youngest consultant psychiatrists, winning the Royal College of Psychiatrists' Research Medal, and voted into the top 10 in the UK by his peers in 2002.

ANI