Surgeon ‘used penknife to cut open patient’

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By Anahita Hossein-Pour, PA Media

A surgeon used a Swiss Army knife to open up the chest of a patient in cardiac arrest because he claimed he could not find a sterile scalpel.

The patient, treated at Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton in December 2023, survived, but the BBC has reported that internal documents show how colleagues felt the surgeon’s behaviour was “questionable” and were “very surprised” he was unable to find a scalpel.