Gynaecologist told patient 'this is how we do it in India' during inappropriate breast examination



Dr Angamathu Arunkalaivanan put woman through ‘three years of hell’



Married practitioner, who goes by Dr Arun, denied he was at fault



Medical Practitioners’ Tribunal Service in Manchester found Dr Arun guilty

A gynaecologist who stood behind a patient and groped her breasts claimed it was how he had been taught to do an examination at medical school in India.



Dr Angamathu Arunkalaivanan put the woman through ‘three years of hell’ after he carried out a ‘sexually motivated’ examination during an appointment at a private hospital.



The married practitioner, who goes by the name of Dr Arun, denied he was at fault and insisted it was how he had been instructed to check breasts while training in Madras.



But the 49-year-old patient sought independent advice about whether the way she had been examined was inappropriate. After her suspicions were confirmed the woman, identified as patient A, contacted the police who referred the case to the General Medical Council.



BMI Edgbaston Hospital where Dr Arun worked. The married practitioner denied he was at fault

Yesterday the Medical Practitioners’ Tribunal Service in Manchester found Dr Arun, 48, guilty of misconduct and suspended him for a year. The doctor, who has an NHS post as consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist at Birmingham City Hospital, was also found to be at fault for failing to offer a chaperone or make a record of the breast check in the patient’s notes.



The panel was told how during the consultation in October 2010 at BMI The Edgbaston Hospital in Birmingham, Dr Arun asked the woman to lift up her top and bra, before cupping and squeezing her breasts with both hands from behind. Patient A told the hearing she still ‘beats herself up’ for allowing herself to be ‘sexually assaulted’.

She said: ‘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 and I actually said, “What just happened in there?” ’



Describing the doctor’s response to her complaint, she added: ‘He didn’t deny anything I said. He said that’s how he was taught in India.’ She told the panel she was so disturbed she could not even bring herself to tell her husband.



The panel was told that Dr Arun, who qualified from the University of Madras in 1988, had been questioned over the incident by director of nursing Pat Munday. He agreed with the patient’s description of what happened, but said it was the way he had been taught at medical school.

The patient was told this by Mrs Munday and offered an apology from the doctor, but felt this was not sufficient. She contacted another breast screening centre, which told her that what she had experienced was not normal, so she went to the police.



Panel chairman Sandra Sturdy told Dr Arun: ‘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. Your conduct ... amounted to serious misconduct.’



Announcing his suspension, she said it would be ‘disproportionate’ to strike him off the medical register, which would ‘deprive the public of the benefit of your medical services’.





