The Medical Council has been in touch with the Finnish health authorities about a pathologist who worked for a number of months at hospitals in Galway and Cork and whose work at both centres has come under scrutiny.
The doctor, who registered with the council in September 2006, is understood to have trained in Germany. He is believed to be living in Finland.
He was dismissed by Cork University Hospital after seven weeks as a locum in its laboratory in July and August after information about his work at University College Hospital Galway became known. Prior to joining the Cork hospital, he had worked for a number of months in the laboratory in Galway, where a cancer patient had been misdiagnosed.
The Health Service Executive (HSE) South asked a London laboratory to review 166 cases the pathologist had dealt with at Cork University Hospital. The report from the UK laboratory found "serious diagnostic errors" in his work.
"From a review of 166 cases, 15 were reported as negative or inadequate when in fact these samples contained malignancy or features suggestive of malignancy."
The HSE South said a number of people had been recalled for tests as a result of the review, but it would not say if any of them had been misdiagnosed. It added that the review was ongoing.
The Cork University Hospital laboratory is the subject of a separate review by the Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa) following its misdiagnosis of a biopsy taken from Tipperary woman Rebecca O'Malley in March 2005. As a result, her breast cancer diagnosis was delayed by 14 months. The Hiqa report on her case, which covers a different time span to the period reviewed by the UK laboratory, is due to be published next month. The Hiqa review covers the period January 2005 to May 31st, 2007.
Meanwhile, Hiqa is also reviewing pathology services at University College Hospital Galway following confirmation in August that a different Tipperary woman with breast cancer was initially given two erroneously positive test results by the laboratory. Her treatment was delayed by 18 months as a result of the mistakes which occurred in late 2005 and early 2007. Two different pathologists had made these mistakes. One was the foreign pathologist who also worked in Cork. The other no longer works at the hospital.
The HSE said it did not consider it necessary to get the UK laboratory to review the work of the foreign pathologist while he was at Galway as the Hiqa review, which is ongoing, covers the period of his employment there.
It is not clear if any patients seen in Galway will have to be recalled for further tests as a result of the Hiqa review.