Doctor suspended after botching circumcisions
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 19/12/2018 (2199 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
A Winnipeg doctor whose “outdated and inappropriate” circumcision techniques sent two boys to hospital with life-threatening complications has been suspended for five months.
Dr. Ejaz Ahmad admitted he was guilty of professional misconduct after he incompetently performed circumcisions on 18 boys in his private family medicine clinic between June 2016 and July 2017. Before then, he hadn’t performed circumcisions for 19 years and wasn’t confident in his abilities, the Manitoba College of Physicians and Surgeons found.
He’ll be prohibited from performing circumcisions even after he finishes serving his suspension, according to the College’s disciplinary decision released Dec. 14.
Most of the patients were from newcomer families who were referred to Ahmad by members of their community, the disciplinary committee wrote in its decision. When the boys suffered complications, Ahmad told the families not to tell emergency room doctors he was the one who performed the circumcisions.
In at least one case, he paid a family $2,000 after he amputated a portion of their son’s penis on July 21, 2017. He went with the family to the emergency room and told medical staff a “traditional man” had performed the circumcision and that he’d only been called to address the complications.
Three of the boys had to be given fentanyl for pain relief while they were treated in the emergency department, including to repair an arterial bleed and remove embedded gauze.
Another patient, after a circumcision by Ahmad on May 14, 2017, was left with “a very abnormal appearance” of his penis and was likely to develop severe limitations, the decision states.
Three of the patients were brothers who were put on antibiotics since their circumcisions to guard against infection. Their mother raised concerns about complications with Ahmad and took her sons to the emergency department July 15, 2017, when doctors noted inappropriate surgical techniques.
Although he later admitted using inappropriate techniques, Ahmad initially placed blame on the boys’ mother and said those circumcisions “went fine.”
“It was because of their mom’s anxiety that these boys had visits to emergency department,” he wrote in a letter to the College on Sept. 22, 2017.
Details of only six cases were included in the professional misconduct investigation, and the College wrote it doesn’t know the outcomes for the other 12 boys. Ahmad kept either incomplete records or no records at all of the procedures.
He’s expected to be back at work at the end of March 2019. He had practised at the Al-Shifa Medical Clinic on Portage Avenue and had been licensed to practise medicine in Manitoba since 2004.
katie.may@freepress.mb.ca
Katie May
Reporter
Katie May is a general-assignment reporter for the Free Press.
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