Message to all
the victims of Dr. Patel
My heart goes out to the patients and their families
who suffered at the hand of Dr. Patel. The citizens
of Queensland did not deserve to be hurt by their
surgeon or their health care system as they did.
But, you are victim of more than one person.
Dr. Jayant Patel:
Here is a surgeon who has a history of lack of judgment
when it came to doing major surgery. The Kaiser or
State of Oregon did not revoke his license but placed
the restriction for major surgeries.
Many have commented that he was a bad surgeon.
This is easy to say but difficult to prove. So
many of these surgeons are technically superior and
even know more than average surgeons because they
are addicted to doing the big surgeries. What was
lacking is not the technical know how but a judgment.
This is the reason that he got best teachers
award or glowing recommendation from some of his peers
.
Unfortunately he was given the position of
director of surgery at Bundaberg. Surgeons like him
are not as dangerous when they are being monitored
by other surgeon but putting them in a leadership
position leaves their behavior totally unchecked.
The Hospital Administration:
Any one with the common sense would have asked a simple
question as to if Dr. Patel is so wonderful why is
he coming all the way to Australia to work, When he
has family and big house in USA? The hospital
system in Queensland is grossly under funded and not
able to attract good physicians. The rural
hospital had trouble attracting any decent physician.
Here was a surgeon who loved to operate. From Dr.
Patel's point of view when he was restricted from
doing big surgery in Oregon and New Yourk, naturally
Australia was a logical option. He loved operating
more than anything else.
Who is responsible for not checking in his background
thoroughly prior to his appointment? Even if he
can hide his professional track record, how come simple
thing like his refusal to wash the hands go for such
a long time unchecked?
Your politicians:
The system is so broken that when the
story leaked out they made a circus of the whole investigation.
Your premier became a joke when he decided to send
his man to Portland OR to flush him out. I am sure
there is a better way to bring a criminal to justice.
Your media:
I guess they must be looking for a sensational story
and found one. They fueled all the rumors and no one
has asked a simple question as to why all these
proceeding had to be a public spectacle and it preceded
the report by Peer group (who could be in
better position to evaluate Dr. Patel) and they did
later on came up with conclusion that he had no ill
will and his results are not that bad!
Media hype created
victims:
The sensational accounts by some of witness without
any proper cross examination contributed to declaring
him guilty as charged. The peer review of his cases
did not confirm all the horror stories printed in
the media and promoted by your premier.
Rampant Racism:
The media has made frequent reference to "Indian
trained" when referring to Dr. Patel.
They fail to understand that Dr. Patel got his medical
school and initial surgical training in India but
he completed his surgical residency and Surgical Board
in USA. Not only that but he did work for NY and Kaiser
in Oregon for 19 years. During which he passed his
board, received best teacher's award etc. Why keep
blaming the "Indian origin"?
Backlash against
Foreign Doctors:
Since Dr Patel was Indian born and USA trained it
is understandable that there may be a backlash against
all foreign physicians. I hope you do not forget that
nearly 20 percent of your doctors are foreigners and
in many cases they give state of the art care. There
is no guarantee that an Australian born Australian
trained doctor would not do the same thing. Being
a good or bad physician is not connected to the country
of origin.
Where is the check
and balances?
The problem was not only that he loved doing major
surgery but problem was the medical system in Australia
did not have any mechanism for early detection and
correction of anyone performing at an unexpected level.
I am not sure if some of his bad result had to do
with poor nursing care and post op support.
Workload to keep
two surgeons busy:
Who will do so much work for so little? He apparently
did more than 1200 surgeries in less than 2 years
that a very heavy workload.
Toni is no Erin
Brockowitch:
As I read the testimony of Toni the head nurse it
is obvious that she is no angel. I suspect that she
had an agenda from early on and was frustrated by
her inability to intimidate Dr. Patel. One of the
job of head nurse is to make a team to treat patient
but she would tell relatives the patient's condition
different from what surgeon was reporting. If she
had a difference with the surgeon she needed to take
it to authorities but not confuse the patients.
Your Medical system
is 20years behind:
What kind of medical system do you have in Australia?
One of the key case where the Toni decided Dr. Patel
was incompetent was when a patient in his late forties
who had esophageal cancer and the bigger hospital
refused to operate on him. When Dr. Patel decided
to do surgery Toni (the head nurse) decided he was
a bad surgeon.
General public may not know this, but a person with
esophageal cancer is basically drowning in his saliva,
and I have seen even 70 year old getting surgery for
palliation. What kind of Medical system you have in
Australia where a head nurse decides that a surgeon
is incompetent because he attempts to palliate young
man with esophageal cancer. I think we need to investigate
the surgeon who left him to die drowning in his saliva
and the nurse who made a judgment on indication of
surgery on such a patient.
A good surgeon in a poorly supported hospital can
get better results than a mediocre surgeon in a well
supported hospital.
All I can say is you need lot more than just bring
Dr. Patel to face the justice. You need the revamping
of entire health system or tragedy such as this will
continue. Next time you will have surgeon who does
not operate on you when you need it for the fear of
being labeled "Dr. Death"
Vijay
Mehta, M.D.
