On a day that an Indian doctor stands accused of participating in an operation that cost a man his life, another eminent surgeon is being congratulated on extracting the world's largest appendix.
Surgeon Mahesh Goel was part of a two man team that has been accused of "abject, needless and inexcusable" negligence in removing the wrong kidney from a 69-year-old patient who died five weeks after he was operated upon in a Wesh hospital in February 2000.
Patient John Reeves had a diseased right kidney, but, because the operating team placed his X-rays back to front in the operating theatre, it was his left kidney that was removed by surgeon Mahesh Goel and urologist John Roberts.
UK General Medical Council solicitor Leighton DaviesQC told a medical hearing in London, "The removal of the left kidney was a surgical error. His left kidney was keeping him alive. Their negligence in carrying out this major operation on a 69 year old patient was "abject, needless and inexcusable" and deserves to be "morally condemned as amounting to gross negligence."
Goel, who denies failing to consult his notes or to look at the X-rays correctly, is away in India.
As the UK television and print media focus on Goel's role in the failed treatment of Reeves, another doctor 150 miles to the east has been winning plaudits for removing the world's longest appendix measuring 21 centimetres.
Surgeon Hari Shenoy has won himself a place in the Guinness book of records after removing Spencer Bayles' appendix at the Lister Hospital in Stevenage, north of London.
Shenoy, who took four hours to remove the giant appendix, said: "A couple of months before operating on the patient, I had coincidentally read that the longest removed appendix was seven inches. When I removed the patient's appendix I knew instantly it was longer.
"It was so long we wanted to measure it on the operating table. It was certainly the longest appendix I have removed in my surgical career."
Shenoy's success is welcome news for hundreds of UK-based Indian physicians and surgeons. High profile medical disciplinary hearings sometimes convey the impression that Indian doctors have a lower level of competence than their white counterparts.
Asked to comment on the Indian medical community's concerns, a senior member of the GMC told rediff.com, "These fears are groundless. Disciplinary hearings do highlight failings within the medical profession, but everyone knows that Indian doctors in the UK are both proficient and pioneering in their respective fields."
