Surgeon is struck off for behaviour “fundamentally incompatible” with being a doctor

A general surgeon who botched a cancer operation, failing to remove an easily palpable tumour and leaving the patient with a distorted chest, has been struck off the medical register after persistently refusing to acknowledge his mistakes.

Mutasim Mohammed failed to show any insight into his shortcomings or to provide evidence of remediation despite two 12 month periods of suspension, a Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service panel concluded.

He was originally suspended in December 2012 for working beyond the limits of his surgical competence in performing breast cancer surgery when he had little experience of the procedure.

During the operation at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary in 2009, he left the easily palpable tumour in place, failed to properly dissect the axilla, failed to retrieve enough lymph nodes, took twice as much tissue as necessary, and unnecessarily removed skin, leaving the patient’s chest distorted. She had to have another operation to remove her breast, which she would have retained if the operation had been done properly.

He was also found to have failed to communicate in a polite and considerate manner with the patient, including in a brief consultation a few days before the operation when she learnt for the first time that she had cancer.

He failed to attend the original hearing in December 2012 but did appear at the review hearing a year later. He explained that he had not previously cooperated with the regulator because he thought it “demeaning and degrading” to be considered the sole cause of the mishandling of the case and because it might be thought to be an admission of guilt.

The 2013 panel extended his suspension by another 12 months after finding that he still seemed to blame others and had limited insight into how he came to act outside the limits of his competence. The panel accepted his assurances that he would never again undertake breast surgery.1

The latest review hearing was originally listed for December 2014, but Mohammed failed to show up, despite indicating the day before that he was hoping to attend. The panel decided to go ahead with the hearing on 27 May in his absence and concluded that he should be erased from the register.

The day before, he had written, “I would like to raise to your attention the incompetence and unprofessionalism of the General Medical Council, and its inability to address or recognize a systemic failure.”

The panel’s chairwoman, Sara Fenoughty, said, “Whilst the original [panel’s] findings arose from a single catastrophic event which caused patient harm, the doctor’s continued refusal to accept these findings, coupled with his persistent failure to comply with the regulatory requirements of the GMC, amounts to behaviour which is fundamentally incompatible with being registered as a doctor.”