A surgeon was struck off after he mistakenly cut off a man’s testicle
and tried to cover it up – by telling him it was very small.
Dr Marwan Farouk was supposed to repair a hernia and remove a cyst
from his patient at the private BMI Chiltern Hospital in
Buckinghamshire.But instead, he removed the entire right testicle and
told staff to chuck it away – before refusing to tell the patient. The Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service ruled on Wednesday that Farouk had been misleading or dishonest.
He told theatre staff to “chuck” the specimen or words to that effect before discarding it in the sharps bin.
Then, during a post-operative consultation with the unnamed patient
on April 30, 2014, he covered his tracks by telling him:
“You have a
small right testicle but it won’t give you any problems.”
Farouk admitted during the hearing that he had removed the testicle.
The
ruling told him: “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.”
