Doctor faces professional misconduct accusations

A CONSULTANT radiologist from Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda has been accused of professional misconduct following the death from brain damage of a 23-year-old man.

Dr John Hanson (40), from Malahide, Co Dublin appeared before the Medical Council Fitness to Practise Committee in Dublin to face nine accusations of professional misconduct.

They included that he failed to diagnose Mark Haran with acute intracranial pressure and/or hydrocephalus (water on the brain), after examining an MRI scan; that he failed to communicate his report on the scan “adequately or at all”; and that he failed to furnish a written report within an adequate time.

Mr Haran, a DIT business graduate, from Moorechurch, Julianstown, Co Meath, died at Beaumont Hospital in Dublin on April 4th, 2008 after being transferred there from Our Lady’s.

Medical Council solicitor JP McDowell told the committee Mr Haran was admitted to the hospital on March 24th complaining of abdominal pain, dizziness and vomiting. He passed a kidney stone and was referred for an MRI scan for the dizziness. After the scan, intern Dr Udim Damanchi asked Mr Hanson to review it and took a verbal report from him.

The details of the verbal report were disputed, but on foot of it, Mr Haran was discharged on March 28th. He was readmitted to Our Lady’s on April 2nd. He had a severe headache with vomiting. The medical team noted he could not stand up. When his file was examined, the report for the MRI scan taken in March was not in it, he said. Dr Hanson had not written it up and was too busy to deal with the matter straight away.

He dealt with it later that day and suggested a possible lumbar puncture might be required as well as a review of the scan by the team. Both happened the following day. Shortly after 5am on April 4th Mr Haran went into cardiac arrest. He was resuscitated and an urgent CT scan showed acute hydrocephalus. He was rushed to Beaumont Hospital and died there later that day. An inquest returned a finding of death by medical misadventure. The hospital and Mr Haran’s family made complaints to the Medical Council.

Mr McDowell said Dr Hanson had written to the family’s solicitor and said the death was a matter of personal regret to him. There had been an element of “miscommunication”, he had said and it was “an aberration” that he had not called a senior colleague to make his verbal report instead of making it to an intern. He had also said he had been very busy at the time because of staff shortages.

Dr Damanchi told the committee when Dr Hanson spoke to her about the scan she “wasn’t given a sense of it as urgent”. “If I was, I would have called my senior colleague to come and hear the verbal report,” she said.

The hearing continues today.