Surgeon Liu-Ming Schmidt found guilty of professional misconduct, barred from practising for six months
A surgeon has been found guilty of professional misconduct while treating 13 patients, including a man who died after having surgery on the wrong end of his colon and a woman who missed a bowel cancer tumor during a rushed colonoscopy.
Dr Liu-Ming Schmidt’s medical registration was suspended for six months by the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal; The surgeon spent as little as five minutes performing colonoscopies on patients at Albury Wodonga Health on the border of NSW and Victoria, the court heard.
Schmidt was the subject of a topic Those in the 2023 investigation A series of incomplete colonoscopies performed or supervised by the surgeon between 2018 and 2022.
The investigation led to the recall of approximately 2000 Schmidt colonoscopy patients, and 1084 underwent repeat colonoscopy. Seven patients were diagnosed with colorectal cancer.
The court’s decision Published on FridayIt included details of what a doctor who provided evidence called a “catastrophic error” during a surgery in November 2019 that contributed to Schmidt’s death. 79 year old patient.
Schmidt was on duty when the man arrived at the hospital with a life-threatening perforated bowel. During emergency surgery, Schmidt removed the wrong end of the man’s intestine to connect it to a colostomy bag, causing a complete mechanical intestinal obstruction.
“But in our opinion, the worst thing is that Dr. Schmidt was not able to follow the patient closely after the surgery,” the court’s decision said.
Schmidt admitted that although he knew the patient was seriously ill, he did not see the patient for several days and that he also worked at the same hospital. When later warned of his mistake, he failed to adequately explain it to the patient and his family.
Another complaint in the case, filed by the Health Complaints Commission (HCCC), concerned a woman known as Patient A, who first saw Schmidt in 2017 after a positive bowel scan and experienced abdominal pain and a change in bowel habits.
Schmidt’s performance four colonoscopies Patient A was cared for between November 2017 and January 2022. The woman was referred again in January 2022 with complaints of iron deficiency anemia and abdominal bloating (potential signs of bowel cancer).
On February 14, Schmidt performed a gastroscopy and colonoscopy. Approximately three months later, Patient A was admitted to the hospital with severe iron deficiency anemia, and a PET scan detected an abnormal mass in her cecum (the sac-like beginning of the large intestine and the farthest point reached with the colonoscope).
Another surgeon performed a colonoscopy on Patient A and detected a 5.5-centimeter adenocarcinoma.
The court’s decision said, “This type of cancer cannot have reached this size in just three months.”
The court agreed with an expert witness that Schmidt failed to detect the tumor during a colonoscopy performed too quickly in February. His records did not show that the colonoscopy reached the cecum.
Schmidt admitted to all aspects of his complaint; These included not taking enough time to perform colonoscopy on eight patients and not capturing sufficient images during the procedures.
The time it took Schmidt to perform seven of these colonoscopies ranged from 10 to just five minutes. He spent 16 minutes performing both a colonoscopy and gastroscopy on a patient.
The colonoscopy alone usually takes about eight minutes. All but one of these patients came from a random sample selected by Albury Wodonga Health who underwent colonoscopy by Schmidt.
HCCC’s medical expert told the court that rapid withdrawal during colonoscopy would lead to lesions being missed. The specialist also expressed concern that Schmidt’s poor or infrequent imaging of the cecum during various procedures indicated that his colonoscope did not reach this part of the bowel (a requirement for a full colonoscopy).
“We found that Dr Schmidt’s behavior was very serious and showed a significant deviation from accepted standards,” the court’s decision said. “Serious enough to justify suspension or revocation of registration.”
The HCCC had sought a one-year suspension of Schmidt’s registration, but the Court granted a six-month revocation, stating that Schmidt had sought to diligently address the areas of concern that had led to the complaints.
“[H]His success in doing this was demonstrated by the support of many colleagues, many of whom observed him in the operating room, the decision states.
Following the investigation in January 2023, Schmidt stopped working for a year. He then returned to practice with conditions such as limiting his surgical procedures, eventually completing the colonoscopy recertification program, and performing colonoscopies only under supervision.
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