Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog

Quick!! Get him some tort reform, his premiums are going through the roof!!
 

The key, as mentioned in the article, is that doctor had his practice severely curtailed in Oregon and by his then-employer, Kaiser Permanente.

With the restrictions he had im place, he would not be able to do what he did in Australia, anywhere in the USA.

Unless no one bothered to check out his credentials.

That's what happened in Australia.

In Queensland, they were so desperate for doctors, the authorities in Australia never bothered to check his credentials.
 

And I wonder why were they so desperate for doctors ?
 

Remote part of the country. They're advertising for doctors all the time.

The Australians admitted they did not properly check his credentials, which the state board would have provided if asked. The doc had severe restrictions placed on his scope of practice, both with the state board and his then-employer. Under those restrictions, there were no further problems with his practice. He could only do certain limited things, and only with mandatory second opinions or some such restrictions.

As soon as he started practicing without limit and unsupervised, he very quickly got into trouble....or so it seems from reading the articles. It's been written up in a number of sources.
 

I can't believe it!
 

An Australian blog:
http://aussie_news_views.typepad.com/aussie_news_views/2005/04/dr_death_dr_jay_1.html

Here’s a whole bunch of citations:
http://newsbreak.com.au/related/a210115

which includes this:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,15374557%255E2702,00.html

ON the eve of public hearings into Queensland's Dr Death scandal, which has been linked to 67 patient deaths, a senior US health official has criticised Australia's checks on the qualifications of overseas-trained doctors.

Oregon Board of Medical Examiners executive-director Kathleen Hayley blamed Australian health officials for failing to check Indian-trained American doctor Jayant Patel's credentials with US authorities.
Dr Patel was given a job at the Bundaberg Base Hospital despite negligence findings against him in New York State and Oregon that resulted in restrictions being placed on his US licences to practise medicine.

"It's really like saying the Department of Motor Vehicles of Oregon put a restriction on somebody's driver's licence," Ms Haley said. "They go to Australia, they get behind the wheel, and they kill somebody. Is it Oregon's problem? Or is it Australia's problem?"

With hearings scheduled to begin today at the Morris Commission of Inquiry into the state's health system, Premier Peter Beattie is bracing for a string of "embarrassing" revelations.

Dr Patel fled the country on a taxpayer-funded business-class flight at Easter as an investigation began into complaints about his work in Bundaberg.

"Of course there will be embarrassment and frankly the Government deserves this," Mr Beattie said. "What we have to do is to make sure that out of this very ugly and painful exercise, there is some good." He stopped short of promising to implement all of the commission's findings.
 

I am a Physician who does proceedures. I have been reading media reports just like most of us about Dr. Death. I feel that Dr Jayant Patel should be Judged by his peers not by some disgruntled nurses or politicians. I feel That his main problem was lack of Judgement and being more aggresive and not knowing his limits. Some times you have to be more aggresive when you are in a rural hospital with no help from other subspecialists.
Let us analyze the cases that he did, that we all know from media reports. He operated on a patient with terminal Cancer of oesophagus when he was turned down as high risk by other physicians. He probably did his best he can in patient who is severely malnurished and who cannot swallow. Obviously the patient and his wife were shopping for a surgeon who could operate on him rather than accepting the terminal nature of illness and going to hospice. Desperte patients(terminal diseases)need desperate measures. The other case was a patient who had chest trauma and had hemopericardium. May be the patient was having tamponade. These are sick patients and they can die any moment. The pressure around the heart has to be released. Any physician would try their best to stabilize them by doing urgent pericardicenteis. that's what he did he had to make several attempts before he was successful. This is a proceedure that you do very rarely. You dont transfer these patients hundreads of miles for a CT surgeon to do pericardiosentesis. One other patient with diabetes and end stage renal disease had amputation and sutures were not removed for 6 wks. Some people fall through the cracks at times despite your best efforts. Why did the patient not come back for his suture removal and most importantly what was the nephrologist who was dialysing her preumably three times a week not notice that and bring this to the surgeons attention. I am not saying that this surgeon is innocent. He probably tried to do more than what he can in a rural hospital with little help from other subspecialists. He probably had some issues with nurses. I can tell you from my personal experience that some critical care nurses try to play doctors and come to their own conclusions, which are some times ridiculous. I hope that this surgeons coplications should be reviewed by a panel of doctors from Australian Medical Society rather than by politicians, Media or the nurses.
 

This summarizes it all http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,15626012-2,00.html .

Nobody says anything about over 1900+ people that he conclusively saved. Everyone is talking about a few dozens that he arguably malpracticed on. Surgeons don't and can't do everything. Supporting staff are very extremely important pre-, intra-, and post-operatively. He couldn't check every suture, every sign of infections, every follow-up. Those are jobs of nurses, residents, etc. Now suddenly he's blamed for every single death that he had anything to do with. Lots of those patients had pancreatic cancer, one that has less than 5% chance of living past 5 years. Many of those may have lived 4.11 years, and would have been dead anyway with or without surgeries. Those who fail more could simply be those that have tried more. If you failed 3 times at the Olympics it may simply mean you failed at 3 most difficult things to do in the world. Did that mean you are a good-for-nothing outcast? The media and the Australian people seem to reel not least on the WRONG fact that he was India-trained. In fact he was US-trained for most of his career. The fact that they are jumping on his teenage Indian background instead of his adult American education shows that the case is racially motivated, socially biased, medically nonsense.
 

Nurses in australia now decide performance of doctors and the media there is so hope less that they make a story out of it.If you have lived in rural australia you would know they still lives in racial enclousre and those overjealous and tear shedding nurses could not accept a dark man as their boss.
no wonder aborginies still suffers there. to see racism at best ...go to rural australia.
 

No wonder you are all anonymous!! You have no idea AT ALL how this man has caused so much suffering, because of his bloody EGO.