Renowned Hong Kong surgeon struck off for 6 months after failing to realise gauze left inside patient’s stomach
- Medical Council says Dr Chu Kin-wah failed to properly investigate after patient’s complaints or adequately check possible presence of a foreign object
- Follow-up surgery removed ‘fist-sized mass’ of surgical gauze from Shum Chun-kong’s abdomen after he sought second opinion
A renowned Hong Kong surgeon has been struck off the medical register for six months, after failing to realise gauze had been left inside a patient’s stomach during an operation.
The Medical Council on Sunday also found Dr Chu Kin-wah guilty of professional misconduct for failing to appropriately investigate after the patient complained of abdominal pain three weeks after his first operation.
“In this alarming and life-threatening situation, in our view, as a responsible surgeon, [Chu] ought to have taken steps to remove the foreign body as soon as possible,” the council said in its verdict.
Chu performed a closure of a sigmoid colostomy on Shum Chun-kong in October 2015 after complications arose following the removal of his prostate months earlier due to cancer. A sigmoid colostomy is surgery to create an opening for the colon.
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The Medical Council noted that 10 pieces of surgical gauze had been used in the operation.
A day later, Chu carried out an emergency laparotomy, a type of open abdominal surgery to help diagnose and treat issues, after Shum developed fever and abdominal pain. The council said 20 pieces of gauze and 10 abdominal pads were used in the procedure.
He also performed a transverse colostomy, a separate procedure, on that day.
In a follow-up consultation three weeks later, Chu identified tenderness in the patient’s upper-left abdomen, but simply prescribed antibiotics. In further follow-ups, the doctor found “no abnormalities” and that the pain had subsided.
But the patient in July 2016 began to experience further abdominal pain, vomiting and diarrhoea.
A CT scan identified the presence of a foreign object, but Chu said it “might have been ingested” and would pass through the body.
He said further colostomy surgery could be performed as planned, following a gastrografin enema, a radiological examination of the large bowel.
But Shum and his family presented the gastrografin enema report for a second opinion to another doctor, who identified “strange ribbonlike opacity” in the patient’s abdomen and ordered further testing.
Shum underwent surgery in August 2016, with doctors removing a “fist-sized mass” of surgical gauze from his abdomen.
The patient and his daughter logged their complaint in September of that year.
The Medical Council found that Chu had “disregarded his professional responsibilities” by failing to properly address the possibility of abdominal infection following surgery.
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The antibiotics prescribed were also inadequate to treat infections arising from medical complications, the council said.
It found that the foreign object was big enough to be picked up by an X-ray and should have been identified in the CT scan, describing Chu’s assessment of it being an ingested object as “not reasonable”.
The council found Chu had failed to take appropriate action to investigate after the patient’s complaints or adequately attend to the possible presence of a foreign object in the patient’s abdominal cavity, removing him from the general register for three months and six months for each offence, respectively. The terms will run concurrently.
He has been on the general register since 1981, and the specialist register since 1998 under the general surgeon specialty.
