A junior surgeon feared he would be physically attacked by the Queen’s former physician, a tribunal has been told.
Zygmunt Krukowski has taken NHS Grampian to an employment tribunal claiming he was unfairly forced out of his job in 2016.
The professor had been suspended by the health board the year before following complaints from four colleagues.
But he denies allegations of bullying, mobbing and harassment, culminating in 2014.
Yesterday Irfan Ahmed told the hearing it had taken him years to put the stress of working in Aberdeen Royal Infirmary’s surgical department at that time behind him.
Under cross-examination by NHS Grampian’s counsel, Ian Truscott QC, Mr Ahmed said he had started to keep a diary at the suggestion of a friend.
In an entry dated May 9 2014, he noted an exchange in which Mr Krukowski had accused him of neglecting, and lying about, patients and made several unsolicited comments and accusations.
Mr Ahmed wrote he had “strongly rejected” the claims and was “shell-shocked to hear them from the mouth of a senior surgeon”.
“At one point he stood so close to me I thought he would physically assault me,” the entry added.
The tribunal heard that the tirade left Mr Ahmed so shaken a manager advised him to postpone a scheduled operation.
He also said he felt patients had been “used as weapons” against him after concerns about some cases, dating back as far as five years, were raised anonymously and without context.
It was then he decided to raise a formal complaint, realising conflict in the team had become something that “could affect his career”.
He said: “The clinical cases were raised as a personal attack.”
But while being questioned by Prof Krukowski’s representative Russell Bradley, Mr Ahmed volunteered that he had visited the surgeon’s home in 2017 to thank him for the “positive effect” he had on his career.
While there, he admitted to being “naive” about what would happen after he lodged the formal complaint, having been advised by senior staff it would lead to fact finding.
Mr Ahmed revealed he had not wanted to “harm” anyone in raising his complaint and would have backed mediation to get past the issues.
Prof Krukowski was suspended from his role at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary following an investigation into his conduct at the hospital in 2015. He was cleared by the General Medical Council (GMC) of any wrongdoing in July 2016 but left the health board shortly afterwards.
The tribunal, led by Judge Alexander Meiklejohn, will continue on Thursday.
