Cataract surgeon faces misconduct hearing

An ophthalmologist who has worked for Boots faced a misconduct charge at a General Medical Council hearing this week - including claims that he used unknowing patients for clinical trials.

Dr Deepak Kumar Chitkara, who was a director at Manchester's Rosen Eye Clinic, is alleged to have carried out two clinical trials without patient consent and the approval of the GMC's research ethics committee.

It is also claimed he did not comply with the clinic's research policy, and, in the course of research, it is alleged that Dr Chitkara took lenses from the clinic's store without permission, failing to adhere to the manufacturer's protocol.

At this week's hearing the Press Association reported that Dr Chitkara's research into the effectiveness of the Kellan lens costing patients £1,700 a time was under scrutiny and that from February 2003 he implanted 118 of the new lenses into one or both eyes of 72 patients undergoing eye surgery at the Rosen Clinic.

Unbeknown to the patients he then collected pre- and post-operative data to evaluate how good the lenses were in effect a clinical trial, but the surgeon did not seek approval from any medical body, the fitness to practise panel heard.

It is also claimed that while working for Capio Renacres Hospital in Lancashire Dr Chitkara failed to contact all potentially affected patients when he was notified of a problem with AquaSense intraocular lenses which he had implanted during cataract procedures.

It is further alleged that Dr Chitkara informed his clinical services manager that he had reviewed all relevant patients postoperatively and there was no need to contact all patients who had received the lens, despite a medical device alert being issued on the lens.

It was also reported that while working for Capio in 2000 Dr Chitkara carried out cataract work on a patient, Dorothy Harrison at Walton Hospital, Liverpool, implanting an AquaSense lens which had the manufacturing fault.

When Mrs Harrison's new lens began to cloud she complained, only to be informed that Dr Chitkara was now working privately. At the hearing she said she was told 'Mr Chitkara has escaped the NHS and gone into big business. And you are one of the unlucky ones'.

The case is expected to last until May 8.