Gynaecologist cleared in hysterectomy case

A consultant gynaecologist was cleared last week of serious professional misconduct after he admitted removing a patient's ovaries without her consent. Ian Fergusson, a consultant at Guy's and St Thomas's Hospital in London, admitted performing an oophorectomy and salpingectomy on Caroline Richmond without consent but denied that he operated without consent or unnecessarily in carrying out a hysterectomy.

Rodney Yates, chairman of the General Medical Council's professional conduct committee, said the case was one of the most difficult the committee had encountered. It had to …