Trainee surgeons are being given ‘anti-ego’ classes to prevent the profession being so arrogant.
Qualified surgeons should also attend the classes – and be ‘removed from the clinical frontline’ if they cannot be educated to improve their behaviour, said experts.
The Royal College of Surgeons said surgeons’ ‘high opinions of their own capabilities’ affect patient survival rates.
Simon Paterson-Brown, of the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, helped set up the courses to teach teamwork and communications. In a letter in the British Medical Journal, he said surgeons who attract high numbers of complaints tend to have more complications during operations.
Last January, transplant surgeon Simon Bramhall was convicted of assault for branding his initials on two patients’ livers at Queen Elizabeth hospital, Birmingham.
In May 2017 breast surgeon Ian Paterson – said to have a ‘God complex’ – was jailed for 15 years for unnecessary operations on ten patients in the West Midlands.
© Daily Mail