Teaching not the reason to operate on teen, US don says
It was in the patient’s interest to fix misaligned neck bones, HK-born overseas surgeon says
A professor invited from the United States to perform neck surgery said it was not for the purpose of teaching that he decided to operate on a teenager who later died, the Coroner's Court heard yesterday.
Professor Dachling Pang was testifying over the death of Medwin Cheung Yui-ting, 13, who died two weeks after the surgery at Tuen Mun Hospital in 2011.
Pang, chief of the Regional Centre for Paediatric Neurosurgery at Kaiser Permanente hospitals in Northern California and paediatric neurosurgery don at the University of California, Davis, was invited to Hong Kong at the time to take part in a training programme run by the Hospital Authority. Medwin was one of the four cases selected for it.
In court yesterday, Pang said it was in the teen's interest to fix two misaligned neck bones.
"I have been doing it for 13 years in Hong Kong," he said. "I was born here, grew up as a child here and I want to contribute to Hong Kong." Pang said he did not prolong operation procedures for teaching purposes.
The surgery, held on August 4, 2011, ended in about eight hours, before Medwin's condition started deteriorating. Pang worked with Dr Wong Sui-to, then a neurosurgeon at the hospital.
On completion of their work, they checked that he was awake, could move his limbs and respond to their instructions, and had no swelling in the face. They handed the case to a junior doctor and left, but were called back about 15 minutes later as Medwin developed breathing problems.