UK surgeon who removed patient’s testicle in botched operation struck off rolls
27 Jun 2016
A consultant surgeon who removed a man's testicle, by mistake and then tried to cover up the mistake by pretending it was still there, but was smaller, has been struck off the medical register.
Dr Marwan Farouk was to remove a cyst to treat a hernia, removed the patient's right testicle in the operation.
The Medical Practitioners Tribunal heard that Dr Farouk performed a "laparoscopic repair of a bilateral hernia" on a man who was only identified as Patient A.
Dr Farouk, a consultant surgeon at Buckinghamshire NHS Trust, worked at Stoke Mandeville and Wycombe General hospitals, according to his website.
However, the private procedure in question was performed at The Chiltern Hospital, a private facility run by BMI Healthcare, in Great Missendon, Buckinghamshire, in April 2014.
The panel was told he removed the entire right testicle and asked the staff to chuck it away. He also refused to tell the patient about his mistake.
According to the ruling of The Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service, Farouk had been misleading or dishonest.
He told the theatre staff to dispose off the specimen.
In order to cover his tracks, he told the patient during a post-operative consultation on 30 April, 2014, "You have a small right testicle but it won't give you any problems."
At the hearing Dr Farouk admitted that he had removed the testicle and had also failed to ensure it was sent for testing to the histology department.
According to reports, the tribunal did not believe Dr Farouk's evidence of how he had failed to recognise the specimen as a testicle, which was the reason he had not recorded any tissue being removed.
The ruling said, "As an experienced surgeon, even on a cursory examination, you must have recognised the specimen for what it was. This was a series of deliberate acts designed by you to cover up the fact you had made an error."
