MCI recommends suspension of surgeon for misconduct

Chennai: The Medical Council of India has asked the state unit to remove the name of a senior general surgeon, Dr R Muthu Kumar, from its rolls for a period of six months from the date of notification for representing to the apex body that he was a faculty member in two medical colleges in the state during the same academic year.
Although the MCI has completed inquiries, it will not be able to remove the doctor's name from the registry according to the Indian Medical Council Act."Doctors are registered by the state councils. So, names will have to be removed from the state registry first. Then when the state committee forwards the notice, it is deleted from the Indian medical registry," said Tamil Nadu state medical council president Dr K Senthil.
The two-page letter dated July 9 from MCI deputy secretary Ashok Kumar Harit said the ethics committee found that the doctor had presented himself as professor and head of surgery at Annai Medical College and Hospital at Pennalur in Kancheepuram during the MCI inspection on December 9, 2014. Later, on July 2, 2015, he presented himself as professor of general surgery at SRM Medical College and Hospital, concealing the information that he appeared as a faculty member of another medical college during the same year.
Dr Muthu Kumar had told the committee that he joined SRM Medical College as Annai Medical College did not get MCI approval for admitting students during that academic year and that he was not aware of the MCI rules. The committee also spoke to the deans of the two medical colleges - Dr A Sundaram and Dr A Manoharan - and concluded that it was the primary responsibility of the faculty to read the declaration before signing it. The declaration form states, "I have not presented myself to any other institution as a faculty in the current academic year for the purpose of MCI inspection," and assures that all the details are correct.
On February 20, the ethics committee said a wrong declaration can be "treated as gross misconduct thereby rendering the undersigned liable for necessary disciplinary action" and ordered that the surgeon be suspended for six months from the date of notification.
If the state medical council acts on this, it will be the first time a doctor is suspended for making a false declaration. In October 2012, the apex body had asked the state council to bar four doctors from practising medicine for falsely declaring themselves as full-time teachers of a self-financing medical college. The state council did not remove them from the register as it felt the information received from the MCI was inadequate.