Indian-origin gynaecologist suspended for groping in UK

An Indian-origin gynaecologist, accused of groping a patient's breasts three years ago, has been found guilty of misconduct by a British panel and suspended from practicing medicine for a year.

Angamathu Arunkalaivanan was also found guilty of failing to offer a chaperone or make a record of the breast check in the patient's notes.

"The panel accepted that this is an isolated case and that the breast examination was clinically indicated. However, the manner in which you conducted the breast examination on Patient A was clearly sexually motivated," Sandra Sturdy, chair of the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service panel in Manchester, said this week.

"Your conduct in undertaking a breast examination...was a serious breach of trust between patient and doctor and amounted to serious misconduct... The panel has found that your actions have brought the medical profession into disrepute, and that you have breached fundamental tenets of the profession."

Sturdy said the panel had determined that "the need to uphold proper professional standards and public confidence in the profession would be undermined if a finding of  impairment was not made".

Arunkalaivanan, who qualified as a doctor from the University of Madras in 1988, runs a private practice at BMIPrioryHospital in Birmingham and is employed as an NHS consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist in BirminghamCityHospital

The consultation involving Patient A took place at BMIEdgbastonHospital in Birmingham in October 2010.

"I left the room that day and I just, it just felt so wrong. I could just not get the examination out of my head," Patient A, who cannot be named for legal reasons, told the panel.

According to 'Court News UK', when she complained to the hospital, the doctor had offered to apologise but she was also told that Indian doctors were trained to carry out breast exams in that way.

She made efforts to find out if the way he conducted the examination was how Indian doctors are trained, but was told otherwise by a nurse, the panel heard. The tribunal decided not to strike off Arunkalaivanan from the UK medical register in view of the medical services he can offer to the public.