Posts Tagged ‘Pathology’

G20 protest pathologist guilty of misconduct

BBC Health - 15th March 2011 10:56 am

A pathologist criticised over reports into the death of a man at the G20 protests has been found guilty of 29 counts of misconduct in another case.

Dr Freddy Patel failed to properly examine the body of Sally White who was murdered in north London in 2002, the GMC found.

Cuts to her liver and bite marks could have been caused naturally, he said. But a GMC panel ruled he acted dishonestly and in a manner likely to tarnish his profession.

Last year Dr Patel was suspended for three months for sub-standard work in three other cases.

And his decision that newspaper seller Ian Tomlinson had died from natural causes at the G20 demonstration was contradicted by another post-mortem examination which blamed abdominal bleeding.

Read more at BBC Health.

Tags:
Posted in News From The Web | No Comments »

Bristol trusts urged to end their pathology feud

By Francesca Robinson - 20th December 2010 1:10 pm

Warring pathology departments in two Bristol hospital trusts are to be merged following an inquiry which criticised damaging professional rivalry and jealousy between consultants.

The inquiry was launched by University Hospitals Bristol Foundation Trust (UHBT) after pathologists at the North Bristol Trust raised concerns about 26 possible cases of misdiagnosis between 2000 and 2008.

“We heard phrases such as ‘power struggle’, ‘playground behaviour’, ‘a Bristol disease which chips away at itself’ from various witnesses describing the relationship between the two trusts,” reported Jane Mishcon, chair of the inquiry panel.

“It will take strong management and exceptional clinical leadership to unify the two histopathology departments, but it can and should be done,” she said.

A review of the cases by the Royal College of Pathologists found that although diagnostic mistakes had been made by pathologists at UHBT, only a few were serious. Most errors were minor and of a type that could have been - and frequently were - made by any pathologist.

A further random selection of 3,500 samples were then investigated. Although the audit highlighted some areas of concerns about the working practices of the UHBT department - particularly sharing difficult cases, seeking second opinions and checking unexpected diagnoses - the service overall was deemed to be safe.

Mishcon said their main concerns were about the culture and attitude of “arrogance and excessive confidence” both within the two pathology departments and between the two trusts.

“We have observed a culture which is at times defensive, responds aggressively to criticism, is sometimes unwilling to acknowledge, let alone learn from, mistakes, and which is based on overconfidence bordering on arrogance,” she said.

Professional competition was healthy, but professional rivalry which damaged services, was not.

The inquiry criticised the unprofessional way that serious allegations about the competence of colleagues had been made in a letter which was copied to 14 separate individuals.

UHBT’s medical director Dr Jonathan Sheffield was also castigated for failing to initially take the allegations seriously because initially he believed they were “vexatious”.

The trust only took the allegations seriously after Bristol GP Dr Phil Hammond reported the allegations in the satirical magazine Private Eye in June 2009.

By this time the concerns had escalated out of all proportion and the already strained relationship between the two pathology services and between the two trusts became even more deeply entrenched. The lengthy and expensive inquiry would not have been necessary had the issues been dealt with when they were first raised, concluded the panel.

UHBT and the North Bristol Trust have now agreed to appoint a joint clinical director of histopathology to run a new integrated service. All future consultant posts will be joint appointments. The trusts have also agreed new procedures to ensure that concerns will in future be more rigorously and swiftly investigated.

UHBT chief executive Robert Woolley said: “The two trusts are committed to ending professional rivalry which works against the interests of patients. We now have a formal Partnership Agreement…enshrining principles of co-operation between us and outlining a number of areas for joint working beyond histopathology.”

He said they had already begun to act on the inquiry’s recommendations for improving the culture, attitude and working practices in the UHBT pathology department.

Tags: ,
Posted in Hospital Dr News | 8 Comments »

UK’s reputation for research and innovation under threat

By Mike Broad - 24th June 2009 1:59 pm

On the face of it, the staffing levels of medical clinical academics in medical schools have improved.

The annual staff survey published recently by the Medical Schools Council shows a 1% increase in the clinical academic staffing level over the 12 months to July 2008. The total of full time equivalents was 3,032 - the first time 3,000 has been topped in eight years.

However, a closer look at the data reveals that academic staffing is ageing, increasingly top heavy, male dominated and has been decimated in a number of specialties that were once academic strongholds.

Professors make up the greatest proportion of all medical clinical academics in post in medical schools, an increase in real terms of 27% since 2000. In contrast, the number of clinical lecturers in post has fallen by 386 – which represents 47% - for the same period.

Fortunately, there are some signs of a recovery in clinical lectureships with an increase in numbers of 6% for the second consecutive year.

The Medical Schools Council is particularly concerned that 58% of the clinical academic workforce is aged over 45. It fears that leadership skills and experience are being lost through retirement with insufficient recruitment in the lower grades.

A spokesperson said: “Existing schemes to support young researchers in accessing the clinical academic career pathway must continue to receive support.

“The Medical Schools Council is working with partner organisations to improve careers advice for students, to raise the profile of academia as a career pathway and to develop a tracking mechanism that will capture the pipeline of the future clinical academic workforce.”

Women continue to be under represented at senior clinical academic grades. Just 13% of clinical professors are female. The report calls for action to be taken to increase the attractiveness of an academic career for women, particularly with the increasing female intake into medical school.

On the positive side, the gender, ethnic and age diversity of staff is improving among younger members.

The survey shows that research in the specialties of pathology, paediatrics and child health, and anaesthesia is under threat. At lecturer grade, there has been a decline of more than 50% in staffing levels in eight specialties since 2000.

It’s worse in paediatrics, with a 60% reduction in the number of lecturers between 2000 and 2007.

Professor Terence Stephenson, president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, said: “We exhort the government not to leave this to the free market and individual universities. Money must be ring-fenced for training posts for academic paediatricians.

“The terms and conditions should also be made more attractive and nationally uniform to address the fact that the majority of paediatric trainees are women and career breaks and maternity leave are major issues which deter them currently.”

Generally, the number of clinical academic consultants has remained relatively steady at around 2,300 full time equivalents, whereas the number of NHS consultants has increased by 40% since 2000 to a total of 39,3000 in 2007.

Professor Peter Furness, president of the Royal College of Pathologists, believes there are not enough opportunities to experience research in run through training.

He said: “We’ve had staff shortages in providing the services - so those entering training know they’ve got a consultant job at the end whether they’ve done research or not. Research just delays their appointment as a consultant which is a disincentive to doing it.”

The college is working to engage trainees in research but, for significant improvement, Furness believes national policy and funding have to change. For pathology, he hopes NICE’s stated intention to expand its remit to cover diagnostics could lead to a renaissance in research.

The Medical Schools Council warns that without new mechanisms to support training and research both the quality of patient care and our ability to educate the next generation of doctors will be severely compromised.

In the bigger picture, the UK’s position as a world leader in medical innovation and research is under real threat.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Features | No Comments »