A British surgeon has lost his job after mistakenly sewing his patient’s organs together, creating a “closed loop” that prevented bowel movements — and was nearly deadly.
According to statements given to the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service, the patient had undergone emergency bowel surgery for tumor removal by NHS surgeon Dr. Yasser Adly Abdel Rahman at Royal Oldham Hospital in Greater Manchester.
Rahman and another surgeon decided to perform a procedure that was “not known to man” that connects the small intestine and stomach.
However, a “major surgical error” was made by accidentally connecting the wrong part of the intestine to the stomach in an operation that was deemed “not compatible with life,” according to expert testimonials.
This resulted in a loop where the patient’s bowel contents had “nowhere to go apart from back into the stomach in a circular fashion.”
Despite the patient reporting increasing pain and vomiting with no bowel movements for weeks afterwards, Rahman seemed unconcerned, according to a nurse.
The doctor even told the patient and their family that “all the signs are saying” that his bowels would work soon.
Rahman and his colleague had decided to connect the two organs to maintain digestive and bowel continuity, and had even tested for no obstructions.
A month after the initial procedure, Dr. Anthony Rate, another colorectal surgeon at the same hospital, took over care after the patient’s family raised concerns.
Rate performed a second surgery and managed to salvage some of the bowel by giving the patient a stoma, a surgical opening in the abdomen for waste to come out.
An expert witness at the tribunal, former consultant general and colorectal surgeon Anthony Blower, said Rahman’s decision was “as bad as it gets for a consultant surgeon.”
“[The patient] would have died in the post-operative period if it was not for the intervention,” Blower said in court.
He added that the initial move connecting the stomach and intestine would have been “extremely difficult” to perform because of the huge tumor present in the patient.
“Dr. Abdel Rahman’s procedure can at best be described as bizarre and was a totally unconventional operation that is not compatible with life,” Blower said.
“Patient A would have died in the post-operative period if it was not for the intervention of Mr Rate.”
During the tribunal, Rahman believed there was a “witch hunt” against him, claiming he had never had a single complaint among his “unblemished record” of 30 years.
Regardless of the doctor’s claims, the tribunal decided Rahman had given no “remorse, empathy, or recognition of the impact on” the patient and “no attempt at an apology.”
The court decided to remove him from the list of doctor’s at the hospital, and an immediate suspension was put in place in case he chooses to appeal against the decision.
