Cardiologist who fitted wrong pacemaker and destroyed patient notes is struck off

A cardiologist has been struck off the UK medical register after he failed to check a patient’s medical notes before surgery, implanted the wrong type of pacemaker, and then destroyed the notes specifying the correct type.

Amer Chit, a locum consultant cardiologist at Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust, admitted to a trust investigation that, before implanting the pacemaker, he had looked at the operating list but not at the patient’s medical notes.

In the medical notes the consultant colleague who listed the patient for the procedure had diagnosed a heart block and had handwritten, “listed for dual pacemaker.” But, while entering data for the operating list, he had inadvertently …