Jayant Mukundray Patel (born 10 April 1950), referred to as
Doctor Death is a
surgeon who is at the centre of a 2005
scandal in which he was accused of gross incompetence while working at
Bundaberg Base Hospital in
Queensland,
Australia. In June 2010, Patel was convicted of 3 counts of
manslaughter and one case of
grievous bodily harm, and sentenced to seven years in jail.
Career
Patel was born in
Jamnagar in
Gujarat, India. He had undertaken his initial surgical studies at the
M.P. Shah Medical College in
Saurashtra University, and obtained a
master's degree in surgery. After graduation he moved to the
United States where he received further surgical training at the
University of Rochester School of Medicine as a surgical intern and resident of surgery. Whilst Patel was working at a hospital in the city of
Buffalo in 1984,
New York health officials cited Patel for failing to examine patients before surgery. Patel was fined
US$5,000 and was placed on three years' clinical probation. In 1989, Patel moved to Oregon and began working for
Kaiser Permanente Hospital in
Portland, Oregon. Medical staff alleged that he would often turn up, even on his days off, and perform surgery on patients that were not even his responsibility. In some cases, surgery was not even required, and caused serious injuries or death to the patient.
After a review, Kaiser restricted Patel's practice in 1998, banning him from doing
liver and
pancreatic surgeries and requiring him to seek second opinions...
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