A HARPENDEN doctor has avoided being struck off after being found guilty of serious misconduct during a fatal operation to cure a young sportswoman s excessive sweating. Anaesthetist Dr Wasfy Yanny of Penny Croft failed to do anything to control Louise Fi

A HARPENDEN doctor has avoided being struck off after being found guilty of serious misconduct during a fatal operation to cure a young sportswoman's excessive sweating.

Anaesthetist Dr Wasfy Yanny of Penny Croft failed to do anything to control Louise Field's dipping oxygen levels, the General Medical Council (GMC) heard this week.

Mrs Field, 27, died two days after vascular surgeon Dr Michael Ormiston accidentally punctured her lung and pumped gas into her stomach at the Bupa Hospital, Harpenden on March 20, 2002.

But Yanny has kept his job after undertaking never to perform similar operations again.

A statement from the GMC panel read: "Apart from this incident you have had a long and unblemished career. The panel is satisfied that an undertaking not to carry out one-lung anaesthesia would be sufficient to meet the identified risk and to protect patients and the public interest."

When the trainee accountant was rushed to another hospital, Dr Yanny gave no indication she might have neurological problems - likely given her lack of oxygen.

He also failed to inform the specialist registrar at Hemel Hempstead General Hospital about the drugs given or provide an anaesthetic chart.

Dr Yanny later spoke to Mrs Field's worried family saying "these things happened" and offered no apology.

A post mortem revealed Mrs Field died from a lack of blood supply to the brain caused by damage to her lungs where a pathologist found a puncture wound.

Drs Yanny and Ormiston had faced a total of 41 charges relating to their actions at the Bupa Hospital.

Dr Ormiston of Abbey Mill End, St Albans will have to wait until later this year before hearing his fate.