Wednesday 3 March 2010

Surgeon who removed baby's bladder guilty of misconduct

We'd mentioned this story before, but here's the outcome:
A surgeon who mistakenly removed a baby's bladder instead of a hernia has been found guilty of misconduct by the General Medical Council (GMC)... Pierina Kapur, 43, was supposed to take out a hernial sac but instead removed 90% of her bladder.
It's not clear to me whether the surgeon was actually punished in any way, all it says is "the panel does consider [her] misconduct to be sufficiently serious as to justify a finding of impairment in this case."

Source: BBC

1 comment:

honest ED Doc said...

Punished?! what are you on? I am sure she will always feel very guilty about this error. What do you think "punishment" would achieve? Even the very best cannot be right 100% of the time. This was an honest mistake by someone who felt that she was acting in the patient"s best interests. When you are a paediatric surgeon, the stakes are high. If you continue to hound healthcare workers, there will be none left and that will result in much death and suffering.