Oregon deactivates doctor's license

PORTLAND — The case of a Portland doctor under investigation for patient deaths in Australia after his medical practice was limited by Oregon regulators has raised questions about the level of disciplinary action for physician negligence and surgical mistakes.

Dr. Jayant M. Patel, 55, who worked for 12 years at Kaiser Permanente in Portland, is under investigation in Australia after problems at the Bundaberg Base Hospital in Queensland, where he was chief of surgery for the past two years.

The Oregon Board of Medical Examiners restricted his practice in 2000 after a review of 79 problem cases, including a man whose colostomy was performed backward, blocking his gastrointestinal system.

The board cited Patel for "gross or repeated acts of negligence" but based the restrictions mainly on four cases out of the 79 referred by Kaiser for review. Kaiser also alerted the National Practitioners Data Bank, a federal database that tracks disciplinary actions against doctors.

The 59-year-old man whose colostomy was reversed had gone into surgery for a hernia. Another male patient, 65, underwent surgery for cancer of the pancreas and died the next day after seven liters of blood pooled in his abdomen.

Helen Brooks, 79, of Corvallis had surgery for diverticulitis, an intestinal inflammation. But after Patel accidentally cut her ureter — the tube leading from the kidney to the bladder — three more operations were needed to repair the damage before Brooks eventually lost her left kidney.

A 28-year-old man suffering from ulcerative colitis, a bowel disease, began to urinate from his rectum after Patel operated on him, accidentally cutting the urethra, a tube leading out of the bladder. Three more operations were required to correct the problem.

Patel was sued for negligence, and the patient's attorney said the case haunted him years later. "My client went through hell," Austin Crowe said. "It was horrible."

Last week, after the Australian allegations surfaced, the Oregon board deactivated Patel's license, making it illegal for him to practice medicine here. The board did so on technical, not medical grounds, because he had failed to notify them of his move to Australia.

Australian medical authorities told The Oregonian that, while they failed to check Patel's background, he was partly to blame because he never reported being disciplined in Oregon as required by law.

Patel reportedly returned home to Portland a few weeks ago but could not be reached for comment despite repeated attempts by the newspaper. The Associated Press could not find a phone listing for Patel.

Patel received his medical degree in 1973 from M.P. Shah Medical College, in the Indian state of Gujarat. Records show he worked in New York City, Rochester and Buffalo, N.Y., before moving to Portland and joining Kaiser Permanente in 1989.

Patel kept his New York medical license after moving to Oregon. But in April 2001, after New York authorities notified Patel they knew he'd been disciplined in Oregon, he surrendered his New York license.