Hamdy El-Shikh
Introduction
Hamdy El-Shikh is a UK doctor who was suspended from the medical register for a further twelve months on 14 November 2025, after a Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service review found for the third time that his fitness to practise remained impaired by reason of conviction and misconduct. The case rests on a 2021 drug-possession conviction and a finding that he lied to his appraiser about illegal drug use, and the review tribunal’s conclusion that he had done nothing since his last hearing to remediate or reflect on any of it .
Background Information
The underlying findings were made at a substantive hearing in 2023. On 4 October 2021, El-Shikh was convicted at Uxbridge Magistrates’ Court of possessing a quantity of class A and class B drugs, and fined £1,615. He then failed to notify the GMC of the conviction without delay, as registration rules require. At an appraisal meeting on 15 August 2022, he told his appraiser he had not used illegal substances other than one specific drug — a statement the tribunal found he knew to be dishonest .
The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation
Adjudicated (regulatory + criminal). The conviction is a court record. The dishonesty and impairment findings are the medical tribunal’s conclusions on the civil standard.
The November 2025 hearing was the third review of the suspension imposed after the 2023 substantive hearing, and it functioned as a test of whether El-Shikh had used the intervening period to address the findings. The tribunal found he had not. There was no evidence of any steps to remediate or reflect on his misconduct since the 2024 hearing. He continued to dispute the original finding of dishonesty rather than engage with it, and he provided none of the materials the 2024 tribunal had requested: written reflections, CPD evidence, or remediation evidence .
The tribunal determined that his fitness to practise remained impaired by reason of both misconduct and conviction, and imposed a further twelve-month suspension with a review hearing directed at the end of that period. The determination notes he had not had a full opportunity to demonstrate progress due to circumstances abroad — but the absence of even the paperwork of remediation, reflections a doctor can draft anywhere, was the fact the decision turned on .
Public Reaction and Consequences
The consequence is a third consecutive suspension and a record now carrying the finding that a doctor lied to his own appraiser about drug use and then fought the dishonesty finding for two years without producing a single reflective document. The case is recorded in MedicWatch’s listing of doctors suspended in 2025 .
No employer statement or separate public comment from El-Shikh appears in the fetched record beyond the determination itself. The determination does not record any employer suspension running alongside the regulatory one; the operative consequence in the public record is the register sanction and the review calendar attached to it .
Current Status
El-Shikh is a suspended doctor under a twelve-month order imposed on 14 November 2025, with a fourth review hearing directed before it expires. The impairment finding stands on both limbs the original case established: the criminal conviction for drug possession and the misconduct of denying it under appraisal. A doctor who disputes a dishonesty finding can test it through reflection and evidence; the tribunal’s conclusion was that across two review cycles he chose denial instead .
The next review will ask the same question the last two did. On the current record, the materials that would answer it still do not exist .
Impact on Their Career/Life
The arc here is the penalty structure of non-engagement. A 2021 conviction and a dishonest answer at appraisal became a suspension in 2023; the suspension became a second suspension in 2024’s aftermath and now a third in November 2025, each review finding the same empty file. Regulatory suspension is designed to be survivable — the route back runs through insight, remediation and demonstrated change, all of which remain available to him. What the third review documents is a doctor two years into a suspension who has not taken the first step on that route, and a tribunal signalling that the reviews will keep coming until he does .