Disgraced former obstetrician Michael Neary came across as "somebody who cared about his patients," according to a doctor who reviewed his conduct in 1998.
The assertion was made in transcripts released by the Medical Council (MC) today. The transcripts are from the MC's internal inquiry into the three obstetricians who provided reports in 1998 exonerating the practice of the Drogheda obstetrician.
Dr Neary was struck off the Medical Register in 2003 following a finding of professional misconduct arising from the removal of the wombs of nine women at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, Drogheda.
The MC decided earlier this month to accept findings of misconduct against the three obstetricians by its Fitness To Practise Committee.
Prof Walter Prendiville, consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist at the Coombe Women's Hospital; Dr John Murphy, consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist at the National Maternity Hospital, Holles Street; and Dr Bernard Stuart of the Coombe hospital, gave Dr Neary a clean bill of health despite concerns that the rate of hysterectomies he had carried out substantially exceeded the average.
The transcripts show that Prof Prendiville said Dr Neary came across "as somebody who cared about his patients.
"He was perceived widely as being the hardest working consultant there."
Prof Prendiville said he thought at the time that Dr Neary had a low threshold for doing caesarean hysterectomy.
But he deemed the rate not comparable to the rate in his institution because of the prevailing circumstances in Drogheda in terms the difficulty of blood transfusion, the lack of colleague support, the no trained theatre nurses.
"He came across to us as being somebody who in each of these cases was faced with a very extreme situation," Prof Prendiville said.
Dr Murphy told the Committee that at the start of the investigation it appeared Dr Neary had no perception that he was doing a lot of hysterectomies.
"He was amazed when he was pulled up in this regard," he said.
When asked if Dr Neary's apparent low threshold for performing hysterectomies concerned him, Dr Murphy said: "Yes, it certainly did. We went through the cases, thought that they were all capable of a defence, recognised that his threshold was low."
