Hospital Ousts Neurosurgeon After New Gaffe

A doctor who botched a brain operation on the mother of one of India’s top movie stars was dismissed Friday from his job as head of neurosurgery at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.

It was the second surgical procedure Dr. Ehud Arbit had bungled in the past six months, the cancer center said in announcing his dismissal.

“This action is painful, but necessary,” said Dr. Joseph Simone, physician-in-chief at Sloan-Kettering. “After a thorough examination of the record, we have concluded that Dr. Arbit failed to meet Memorial Hospital’s standard of care.”

Arbit mistakenly operated on the healthy right lobe of 59-year-old Rajeswari Ayyappan when he was supposed to remove a tumor from her left lobe.

Ayyappan, who is the mother of Sridevi, one of India’s most popular film stars, was transferred to New York Hospital within days of the mistake, and 40 percent of her tumor was removed during a second operation there.

She was released from New York Hospital on July 18. Officials wouldn’t say if she suffered any permanent damage.

Arbit has called the mistake a terrible tragedy but said it was not the result of carelessness.

Simone said Arbit also mishandled an operation in December 1994. He was supposed to remove a cancerous lesion from the left side of a patient’s brain but entered from the right and found nothing. A second surgery was necessary.