Alder Hey pathologist is struck off medical register
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《英国医生杂志》
A pathologist has been struck off by the General Medical Council for storing thousands of children's body parts, against the wishes of their parents. Dick van Velzen became national news in 1999, when an inquiry at Liverpool's Alder Hey Hospital found that he had left thousands of jars containing children's organs to decay in a musty storeroom ( BMJ 2002;322: 255).
In many cases Dr van Velzen retained organs against the wishes expressed in parents' consent forms. He also falsely claimed to have returned organs that he had actually kept, the GMC found.
Several families had to conduct second funerals after learning that they had not buried their child whole. The furore generated by the incident led directly to the passing of the 2004 Human Tissue Act.
Dr van Velzen, who is Dutch, refused to attend the hearing and has stayed at his home in Oegstgeest, Holland. He refuses to speak to the press.
Dr van Velzen worked at Alder Hey from 1988 to 1995 and was also chairman of fetal and infant pathology at the University of Liverpool. He moved back to Holland after a six year interval in Nova Scotia, Canada, where he again fell foul of rules on the storage of organs. Before leaving Canada in 2001 he was struck off the medical register there and convicted on criminal charges of "indignity of human remains," relating to his storage of organs from a teenage girl.
The GMC's fitness to practise panel, sitting in Manchester, concluded its hearing this week by finding 46 of 48 charges against Dr van Velzen proved. The GMC reviewed a large number of postmortem reports and found that only a minority showed any evidence that histopathology had been performed.
The panel's chairman, Ian Chisholm, said Dr van Velzen's common practice "was to remove and retain organs at post mortems."
"This retention led to a substantial store of organs accumulating at the Hospital," he said. "They were later found in a badly lit cellar." Over 2000 organs from about 850 children were stored in what colleagues described as "filthy" conditions.
Dr van Velzen was also found to have forged a colleague's signature on an application for a ￡1176 ($2140; 1770) research funding grant.
Summing up, Mr Chisholm said: "He practised out of the boundary, and he was out of touch with people's feelings. It was a violation of children's bodies. He has undermined trust placed in medical practitioners to such an extent it has damaged the medical profession as a whole."(Owen Dyer)
In many cases Dr van Velzen retained organs against the wishes expressed in parents' consent forms. He also falsely claimed to have returned organs that he had actually kept, the GMC found.
Several families had to conduct second funerals after learning that they had not buried their child whole. The furore generated by the incident led directly to the passing of the 2004 Human Tissue Act.
Dr van Velzen, who is Dutch, refused to attend the hearing and has stayed at his home in Oegstgeest, Holland. He refuses to speak to the press.
Dr van Velzen worked at Alder Hey from 1988 to 1995 and was also chairman of fetal and infant pathology at the University of Liverpool. He moved back to Holland after a six year interval in Nova Scotia, Canada, where he again fell foul of rules on the storage of organs. Before leaving Canada in 2001 he was struck off the medical register there and convicted on criminal charges of "indignity of human remains," relating to his storage of organs from a teenage girl.
The GMC's fitness to practise panel, sitting in Manchester, concluded its hearing this week by finding 46 of 48 charges against Dr van Velzen proved. The GMC reviewed a large number of postmortem reports and found that only a minority showed any evidence that histopathology had been performed.
The panel's chairman, Ian Chisholm, said Dr van Velzen's common practice "was to remove and retain organs at post mortems."
"This retention led to a substantial store of organs accumulating at the Hospital," he said. "They were later found in a badly lit cellar." Over 2000 organs from about 850 children were stored in what colleagues described as "filthy" conditions.
Dr van Velzen was also found to have forged a colleague's signature on an application for a ￡1176 ($2140; 1770) research funding grant.
Summing up, Mr Chisholm said: "He practised out of the boundary, and he was out of touch with people's feelings. It was a violation of children's bodies. He has undermined trust placed in medical practitioners to such an extent it has damaged the medical profession as a whole."(Owen Dyer)