Sudbury doctor drama: controversial cardiologist ‘exposed patients to harm,’ fought with colleagues
CTV
In a ruling released this week, a prominent Sudbury cardiologist lost his long battle to restore his hospital privileges at Health Sciences North.
In a ruling released this week, a prominent Sudbury cardiologist lost his lenghty battle to restore his hospital privileges at Health Sciences North.
The court case is rooted in a breakdown in HSN’s cardiologist team dating back to 2014, when a physician began performing a revolutionary heart procedure in Sudbury.
Dr. Dinar Shukla was the first in northern Ontario to do a procedure called transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI). It’s a much less invasive procedure to replace the main artery to the heart after it has calcified or narrowed.
It allows doctors to restore the function of the aortic valve without first having to remove the old one. While much less invasive, the operation is complex and requires a team of doctors.
The board said strong teamwork is vital for TAVI teams to succeed because of the complexities involved.
But Shukla, an interventional cardiologist, had serious issues working with the TAVI team. By 2015, serious divisions emerged and chief of staff Dr. Chris Bourdon commissioned an external peer review of the cardiology program in an attempt to right the ship.
The review was released in December 2016 and recommendations included that a “strong-willed and experienced” physician take control of the team – and that this person should be Bourdon on an interim basis until a permanent chief of the department could be recruited.
