A “bad surgeon motivated by ego and suffering from lack of insight”

Australian surgeon Jayant Patel has been sentenced
to 7 years in jail after being found guilty of three counts of manslaughter and
one count of grievous bodily harm.

The prosecution described Patel as a “bad
surgeon motivated by ego and suffering from lack of insight”. He had been
criminally negligent in his work. “Over 19 to 20 months there had been
poor decision-making, misdiagnosis, performing surgery on patients who could
not withstand it, performing surgery at the wrong hospital and the removal of
healthy organs”.

The defence maintained that Patel acted
only in the best interests of his patients, who had consented to the
operations.

The Patel case has been on the front page of
Australian newspapers since 2005. The doctor was trained in India and moved to
the US. He was censured for negligence and had his licence to practice
restricted in both New York and Oregon. However, he managed to talk his way
into becoming a surgeon at country town in Queensland where there was a
shortage of doctors. There he bullied and bluffed his way through his work
until a whistleblower finally convinced authorities to investigate his horrendous
record. Patel then fled to the US and had to be extradited to face charges.

Patel will face a separate trial for eight
counts of fraud and a second charge of grievous bodily harm. ~ ABC News, Jun
29, Jun 30

Jared Yee
Australia
malpractice