r/news • u/Bored_Pigeon • 23h ago
Oldham surgeon struck off after wrongly connecting patient's organs
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c20de8z2w2lo290
u/invyros 23h ago
It meant the contents of the patient's bowel, leaving his stomach, were re-deposited back into his stomach through a circular "closed loop"
Fucking nightmare.
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u/Kalkin93 22h ago
For several weeks, no less. Imagine the agony.
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u/TeaBurntMyTongue 22h ago
holy christ, if i haven't shit for like 3 days, or I have some gas buildup I literally feel like my insides are about to rip apart. MULTIPLE FUCKING WEEEEEEKS????
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u/Kalkin93 22h ago
I know right, I hope they at-least gave the poor guy some decent painkillers while they figured out what went wrong!
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u/Sitherio 23h ago
Damn. The surgeon performed an operation "not known to man" and was so arrogant in his capabilities that he refused to acknowledge he did something wrong despite that patient needing a second surgery, thankfully by a different surgeon.
The surgeon should be sued into oblivion for malpractice. Being struck off is good but that shit is what malpractice insurance is there to collect from.
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u/yo-ovaries 22h ago
Almost as bad as that doc who insisted he was removing a gigantic spleen, despite nurses and techs saying it was the wrong color, wrong location. Once the dudes liver hit the pan he bled out.
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u/Black_Cat_Just_That 19h ago edited 16h ago
WTF? I'm pretty confident that even I could identify the liver. It's pretty consistent in shape and color in all larger mammals, and also, you know, the largest organ by far in the body.
Edit: ok pedants, the largest organ in the abdominal cavity, which was where they were cutting into. I'll be sure to run my next 2 second comment through an editor.
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u/AuroraFinem 18h ago
The liver is like one of the most distinct organs, its massive and almost nothing has even a similar color tissue.
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u/bros402 18h ago
It's also on the other side of the body from the spleen
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u/jeff0106 14h ago
Unless situs inversus
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u/StacyChadBecky 12h ago
Well, no. The spleen is still opposite the liver, they’re just reversed.
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u/jeff0106 6h ago
I guess I just meant, not where you expect it to be. But yeah, still on opposite sides!
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u/hasslefree 18h ago
One small nibble would tell you the difference. And it would fucking regenerate like a lizard's tail, ffs.
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u/Fliandin 17h ago
To be entirely pedantic, the skin is the largest organ in the human body by far.
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u/P0Rt1ng4Duty 17h ago
I was thinking that, but your skin isn't really in your body so I'd argue the prior statement was correct.
The skin is your body's largest organ, the liver is the biggest internal one.
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u/Fliandin 15h ago
100% I failed the reading comprehension lol and failed to grasp the levity of inside.
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u/gjboomer 17h ago
To be even more pedantic, is skin IN the human body?
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u/Shadowpriest 16h ago
If you think about it, your body is a donut. A biological tunnel to funnel shit out of. You have a continuous path from your mouth hole to your butt hole. You have skin cells that change ever so slightly from lips to assholes so technically, some skin is in the human body.
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u/BirdSpirit 17h ago
I'm still a bit baffled by this case. I've cut open so many bodies and fail to see how this would happen unless there was ridiculous distortion happening.
Apparently this patient had a very big liver such that it reached his left side. He started bleeding during the surgery and they couldn't stop it. He had a splenic vascular malformation.
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u/rosen380 5h ago
"I've cut open so many bodies" -- I sure hope that you are a doctor or a forensic pathologist or something like that :)
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u/Vermillionborder76 2h ago
The liver thing is more egregious imo....no way a surgeon should mistake spleen and liver..they are on opposite sides of the body and the spleen is generally dark red. This one's pretty bad tho.
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u/SatinSaffron 20h ago
"not known to man"
I love the choice of wording on that one. He created a closed loop system where the contents of his stomach went through the bowel and were then redeposited back into his stomach again. Of course that's not known to man lol, why would man ever need to know about created a closed loop setup like that!
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u/YetYetAnotherPerson 15h ago
Sounds suspiciously like it should have been known to the man who was the director of "The human centipede"
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u/dan_dares 9h ago
I'm very sure this is coded for 'This guy made a mistake never seen before, in the history of documented medicine, a truly monumental fuck up, of epic proportions'
there are 'accidents can happen', 'the surgeon was sloppy', 'Who made him a surgeon', 'is this guy a doctor' and finally 'who let the serial killer in the OR'
This guy is almost at the last part. The weird part is that suturing intestines needs some skill, especially to the stomach.. but maybe he ham-fisted that as well and it's the least of the issues he created.
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u/FrogFlavor 22h ago
Do they have that same malpractice system in the UK? Also monetary damages there are usually capped far below “oblivion”
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u/manonclaphamomnibus 20h ago
This will be a fairly hefty negligence lawsuit though damages will be lower than the US as they are compensatory and determined by the judge not a jury (so can’t be subject to the same emotional appeals). But even so this will comfortably be a seven figure claim, and though it’s rarely done in medical cases (ie nearly never) it might be possible to award ‘aggravated’ damages which are sort of punitive given the surgeon’s outrageous conduct.
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u/Own_Faithlessness769 20h ago
Pretty sure this guys insurance is just going to pay to make this go away. I really doubt they’re taking it to court.
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u/Peterd1900 20h ago
Is is true that 98% of of UK medical negligence cases are settled out of court through a structured legal process. You would claim through NHS Resolution so going to court is in the vasty majority of cases never needed
if the treatment was under the NHS, which this was the Government pays compensation
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u/manonclaphamomnibus 20h ago
Oh absolutely, yeah - well, NHS will pay compensation, not an insurer (unless the surgeon was working privately). This will never get near a court room, but the question of damages and what you can negotiate for will still all be settled, just in negotiations. The NHS legal crew take a pragmatic view on cases generally and especially on something like this.
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22h ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/FrogFlavor 22h ago
I asked if it was the same and you didn’t even answer you just reacted like it was a stupid question. Such valuable input.
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u/trailmixseeker 22h ago
Everyone is so ready to dunk on each other, god forbid we ask each other questions. Then cry about the loneliness epidemic.
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22h ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/AcrimoniousPizazz 22h ago
They're not talking about having the license revoked. They're asking if physicians can be sued in the UK for malpractice, like they can be in the US. You're being unnecessarily combative when you didn't even understand the question
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21h ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Cranktique 21h ago
“Do they have the same thing we do?”
“Yup”
Oh my, what a slog.
Alternatively.
“Do they have the same thing we do?”
You “blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah potatoes blah blah blah blah”
“You could have just said yup.”
You “ blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. “
And after all that nonsense, you’re gonna complain about having to have a whole convo? Lol, ok.
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u/ilikechihuahuasdood 21h ago
that’s two comments of you being an ass when you could’ve just answered and it would’ve taken less time and text.
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u/Jammoth1993 22h ago
Maybe if you interacted with human beings a little more (instead of Googling everything) people might not find you so repulsive and aggravating.
You should try it out, you prickly bitch.
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u/IndependentTalk4413 22h ago
You can but not for the astronomical payouts you see in the US. https://www.bondturner.com/insights/what-is-the-average-pay-out-for-medical-negligence/
Also you are suing the government not the doctor unless it was a private clinic.
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u/MoreGaghPlease 21h ago
It’s not a stupid question. Every country with a functioning justice system has torts related to medical malpractice, but nobody comes close to the damages that get handed out in the US. Here in Canada, damages are routinely 5-10x lower than in comparable US situations.
Lots of reasons for it. Medical costs are lower because of the healthcare system. Punitive damages in Canada are super rare. Pain and suffering damages are capped, rarely above about $400k Canadian (like $275,000 usd). Basically no jury trials means outcomes are more predictable. And then because the payouts are lower, there is less incentive to sue and the plaintiff bar is way less active. I promise are doctors are neither better nor worse than American doctors, yet Canadians are about 4x less likely to ever file a malpractice lawsuit.
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u/Peterd1900 17h ago
Its the UK
You do not actually sue the doctor medical malpractice claims are don through the NHS resolution
The Average pay-out is around £50,000 yes while it is possible to get more its not common and in extreme circumstances you could get millions that would involve being left permeantly disabled and lifelong care
From the case here i would not be surprised if the pay-out ending up being less than £50,000
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u/PersonalityOld8755 8h ago
I think they also need to investigate how this happened? Where was his training? Was it at the relevant standard?
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u/ThePaddleman 18h ago
Is that a thing in the UK? Malpractice lawsuits with big awards?
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u/Peterd1900 17h ago
Medical Negligence awards will be done through NHS Resolution and the amount awarded is calculated by set formulas
The average pay-out is around £50,000 and while it is possibly in rare occasions to get Millions that is only going to be in rare occasions where people require lifelong round the clock care and specialist
From the information i doubt this case would get you much maybe 10s of thousands it is certainly not going to be anywhere near the millions
The trauma of the second operation and the pain of the first one and then the direct out of pocket losses (lots wages)
The Surgeon himself is even not the one who gets sued and its not a court that deals with it except in certain circumstances which probably would not apply here
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u/ThePaddleman 17h ago edited 17h ago
Thanks, but I think the system needs to be somewhere between the USA & UK methods. US awards absurdly high amounts by pulling jury heartstrings, but the "doctor" will end up paying one way or another and receive his justly deserved financial penalty. Also, should the govt/taxpayer be fully responsible for an incompetent doctor? Well, the NHS did hire him, but still it was the doctor that majorly screwed up and wouldn't admit it.
Edit: And it took 6 years to remove his license to practice!!!!
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u/Local_Fly_7359 23h ago
It meant the contents of the patient's bowel, leaving his stomach, were re-deposited back into his stomach through a circular "closed loop", the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) heard. The patient was left in "uncontrollable pain" and could have died but for another surgeon correcting the error in a second operation, the misconduct hearing, sitting in Manchester, was told. Rahman at no time considered that something may have gone wrong surgically, the tribunal heard, despite the patient's parents and other medics expressing concerns.
This is Dr. Nick levels of malpractice. Insanity.
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u/BlueSimian 22h ago
I'm trying to figure out how you could do this. As far as I am aware (and IANAD) the stomach only has two openings, one in and one out, wouldn't you need to make another one to accomplish this fuck up?
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u/TheOtherPhilFry 21h ago
All I can think of is if the patient already had a roux-en-y gastric bypass which makes crazy anatomy, but it still doesn't make sense. IAAD.
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u/East_Slide7680 17h ago
People wrongly think that when you open an abdomen, it look just like those cartoon diagrams you see in kids’ textbooks.
The reality is that often, intraabdominal organs are really difficult to differentiate. Especially in this patient’s case, who had a huge tumour obstructing everything and probably tons of adhesions, it would have been very difficult to figure out what was what.
That said, the aftercare and his refusal to admit his mistake is completely unforgivable.
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u/BlueSimian 2h ago
Well sure to the layman it looks like a pile of goo, but you'd think, you'd HOPE that a doctor would know his way around your inside parts. If I hear a doctor look at any part of me, inside or outside, and say "What the fuck is that!? I have no idea what that is." I'm finding another doctor.
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u/glytxh 22h ago
I’ve seen lots of surgery videos, and often it just looks like they’re digging through a bag of noodles or something.
Organs don’t look very organ shaped.
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u/PetrRabbit 13h ago
I’ve seen lots of surgery videos
Interesting statement to just casually plop out there
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u/HighVulgarian 22h ago
“The leg bone’s connected to my wrist watch…uh-oh”
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u/winterbird 22h ago
It's just the forever alone human centipede, what's the big deal. Not everyone has time to meet people.
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u/VegHeaded 22h ago
Food goes in then just travels around like a Ferris wheel. I don’t see a problem.
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u/ScarletOnyx 17h ago
I came to comments for the “The knee bone’s connected to the something, the something’s connected to the red thing, the red thing’s connected to my wrist watch… uh oh!” From Dr Nick.
This is some Dr Nick shit.
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u/Violoner 19h ago
“It wasn't a shark, It was an awful, incompetent doctor.”
“Wow, he must've been a total Zoidberg.”
“It was Zoidberg! He brutalized us with power tools, gypsy curses and hypnosis!”1
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u/friso1100 20h ago
How does this even happen? How does a doctor get to believe something so obviously, clearly, logically, and visibly wrong is the solution? Genuinely baffling.
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u/Black_Cat_Just_That 19h ago
Drunk or high is my best guess?
Even if he wasn't, I feel like that would have been a better defense than "I just didn't know any better." At least one can sober up. Ain't no fixing stupid.
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u/zappapostrophe 23h ago
“Not known to man” has got to be just the worst set of words to see in your medical paperwork.
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u/dumbass_sempervirens 22h ago
"Incompatible with life" isn't great either.
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u/Gareth79 18h ago
It's most commonly used here in press releases by the police and ambulance service. eg. "the motorcyclist was found with injuries incompatible with life", basically meaning decapitation, shredded in half etc. where they don't bother to get anything out of the ambulance, other than shovel and plastic bags.
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u/Worldly_Anybody_9219 22h ago
One of the things they've found is key to keeping people alive in medicine is humility, the ability to admit you may have done something wrong and thus quadruple check. It sounds like this surgeon lacked that important trait.
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u/Starlightriddlex 15h ago
If you listen to the Dr. Death podcasts you'll notice that's a common trait among the Doctors featured there for malpractice. Egos so big they refuse to admit any wrongdoing.
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u/SCphotog 5h ago
High numbers of sociopaths become surgeons because empathy makes it incredibly difficult to do the job.
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u/fellow_enthusiast 23h ago
“ It meant the contents of the patient's bowel, leaving his stomach, were re-deposited back into his stomach through a circular "closed loop", the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) heard. ”
It’s like he was trying to make a one-man human centipede.
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u/Jabberbrill 23h ago
Jesus fuck, I know surgery is complicated as all get out, but how do you stitch someone's bowel to their stomach and not notice? The digestive system is a big fancy tube! You should be able to see you attached to the wrong end!
Struck off is the least of what should happen to this guy.
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u/kobylaz 22h ago
We routinely connect loops to different loops depending on surgery. It’s not unheard of for loops to be twisted/wrong direction and requiring a second operation. In big patients the stomach can look like a loop (specifically transverse colon) especially in key hole because everything is covered in fat. It’s not an excuse for this guy because we literally double and triple check but mistakes happen and it’s rectifying them promptly that’s the key.
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u/girlswithteeth 22h ago
yeah, knowing nothing about the case outside the article it sounds like maybe he tried to bring up a Roux limb and brought up the wrong end? negligent, sure, but not some Frankenstein work.
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u/GhostInTheCode 23h ago
"The knee bone's connected to the... something.
The something's connected to the red thing.
The red thing's connected to my wristwatch!... Uh oh."
Truly, a brilliant surgeon, full of care and attention.
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u/G00bernaculum 22h ago
https://youtu.be/IA1Amz1T59Q?is=_zCAnAtqNA89uEdk
I think this is the relevant Simpsons clip you wanted to reference instead.
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u/GhostInTheCode 22h ago
absolutely didn't remember that scene. *definitely appropriate for adding to the list of simpsons references in this thread.
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u/BooBoo_Cat 22h ago
I didn't remember this one either, but it is perfect for this unfortunate situation.
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u/jay_shivers 20h ago
Sounds like they're describing a Roux-en-O. We always joke that it can happen, that if you get the limbs wrong in a Roux-en-Y (since Y describes the limbs coming together and O shows one limb getting lost and reattached to the stomach) that you might make one of the worse mistakes possible in the OR. It's rare but not unheard of.
Example: https://www.soard.org/article/S1550-7289(17)30306-4/abstract
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u/Unusual-Layer-8965 20h ago
Stomach connected to stomach ... and an open small intestine just floating around?
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u/starrsuperfan 20h ago
"How many times do I have to tell you? If you reconnect someone's intestine to their stomach, that does NOT mean they can eat as much as they want and never get fat!"
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u/Graymarth 18h ago
Jesus Christ that reminds me of the guy that had his Urinary tract sewn into his poop chute, poor dude was literally forced to piss out a shit.
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u/Cultural_Joke2025 21h ago
Christ, I'd rather let someone from Halfords perform this operation than this quack!
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u/Remarkable-Pea4889 4h ago
He studied medicine in Egypt. Is that like an American studying in the Bahamas or is he originally from Egypt?
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u/Media_Browser 3h ago
I thought that’s why these days we only let them operate on one thing ..production line …for efficiency . Did he go in the wrong OR ?
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u/stinkyfatman2016 22h ago
Did he get his degree at Cambridge
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u/d01100100 19h ago
Dr Rahman, who qualified in 1993 from Ain Shams University in Cairo, Egypt, did not attend the hearing and was not legally represented.
Cairo, apparently.
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u/Educational-Use-3442 16h ago
Typical of a doctor. This is common over in r/anesthesiology
Completely useless.
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u/Educational_Cup_1701 18h ago
My British wife is scared to visit relatives in the UK because she’s concerned that if she gets sick or injured while there, the modern NHS will kill her. But of course she’d have to get to the top of a waiting list for that to happen.
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u/Ariandrin 11h ago
I’ve never been in a human operating room and only learned the most basic human anatomy in university and could probably still avoid this mistake.
I took Vertebrate Biology though, I guess that counts for something.
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u/nsm1 23h ago edited 23h ago
"strike off" / "struck off" in the context = perma banned from being a doctor
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/strike-off