Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service determination — substantive hearing
Suspended from practice — 7 months
The regulator’s term: suspension
What does “suspended from practice” mean?
A suspension is a fixed-term pause on the right to practise. The practitioner cannot work in the regulated profession during the suspension. At the end of the period the suspension may be extended, replaced with another sanction, or lifted on review.
Concerning Ameen Mardanpour, doctor (General Medical Council 7951562).
Decision date: 20 March 2026 · Hearing started 16 March 2026 and ended 20 March 2026
In plain English
The MPTS tribunal found that Dr Ameen Mardanpour, while a fifth-year medical student on a GP placement in May 2023, used his professional position to attempt to establish an improper, sexually motivated emotional relationship with a vulnerable patient by sending personal mobile and WhatsApp messages over three days. Dr Mardanpour admitted all charges. The tribunal, taking into account his significant insight, remediation and remorse, suspended his registration for seven months with a review hearing directed.
Charges
Charge 1: as a medical student at St Georges Medical Practice on 23 May 2023, Dr Mardanpour undertook a consultation with Patient A and used his professional position to attempt to establish an improper emotional relationship with her, in that between 23 and 26 May 2023 he sent the messages set out in Schedule 1 from his personal mobile phone (admitted and found proved). Charge 2: he knew Patient A was vulnerable as on 23 May 2023 he (a) reviewed her medical records and history with her GP and (b) consulted with her (admitted and found proved). Charge 3: his actions as set out at paragraph 1 were sexually motivated (admitted and found proved).
Findings
The Tribunal found all factual allegations admitted and proved. It determined Dr Mardanpour's actions amounted to serious misconduct that breached paragraphs 1, 53 and 65 of Good Medical Practice 2013 and paragraphs 3, 4 and 11 of the GMC's 2013 Professional Boundary Guidance. The Tribunal placed the misconduct at the higher end of the spectrum of seriousness, with the example most closely resembling the facts being 'an improper sexual or emotional relationship with a patient', though the actions did not reach that level. It found his fitness to practise currently impaired on limbs 2 and 3 of the overarching objective (public confidence and professional standards) but not limb 1 (patient safety). It assessed overall ongoing risk to public protection as medium (at the higher end of the medium range). Applying the 2025 Guidance sanctions banding for sexual misconduct, the Tribunal directed suspension for seven months with a review hearing. It declined to impose an immediate order; the substantive direction takes effect 28 days after written notification.
Mitigating and aggravating factors
Mitigating factors
The Tribunal found Dr Mardanpour had demonstrated significant insight, expressed remorse it considered genuine and heartfelt, and had actively remediated through structured CPD on professionalism, probity, boundaries and safe communication; supervised locum SHO clinical work seeing over 1,200 patients including vulnerable individuals with no further concerns; and a teaching role at New Vision University covering GMC standards and maintaining boundaries. He had made full and frank admissions to the entirety of the allegation at an early stage and co-operated fully with the GMC's investigation. He had no previous regulatory concerns with the GMC or his former regulator as a pharmacist. The Tribunal accepted his account of personal circumstances at the time (significant family stress, bereavement, financial pressure and earlier trauma from a serious motorway accident) as having contributed to his behaviour and decreasing the risk to public protection to some extent. It also took into account a 15 to 16 month lapse of time in the case being substantively listed, which was not of Dr Mardanpour's making, when assessing the proportionality of the sanction.
Aggravating factors
The Tribunal identified the following factors as increasing the seriousness of the misconduct: that the behaviour was repeated over a number of days (a reasonably significant number of text and WhatsApp messages over three days); Patient A's particular vulnerability, including documented mental health difficulties of which Dr Mardanpour was aware having reviewed her records; the somewhat predatory nature of the actions, a characterisation Dr Mardanpour himself accepted; that the actions represented an abuse of his professional position and position of trust, including referencing in messages information learnt through his role at the Practice; that the actions represented a reckless disregard for patient safety as he knew or ought to have known the impact of breaching professional boundaries; and that he asked Patient A to delete his messages and not to disclose his contact with her, which the Tribunal considered a limited attempt to hide or avoid responsibility.
Source
All facts on this page are drawn from the publicly published Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service determination linked below. MedicWatch does not editorialise the regulator’s findings.
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