Crazed surgeon amputates penis
From correspondents in Bucharest
July 19, 2004

A ROMANIAN surgeon underwent a fit of madness while operating on a patient's testicles and instead cut off the man's penis and sliced it into three pieces, hospital officials said.

The surgeon, Naum Ciomu, was described as a senior member of the hospital staff and a professor of anatomy.

He had been operating on a 34-year-old man for a testicular malformation when he committed the act, the officials said.

"We are shocked by what has happened. It is the first time we have had such a case," said Sorin Oprescu, head of the Bucharest emergency hospital where the patient was rushed for emergency reconstructive surgery.

The operations have been entrusted to a highly respected Romanian plastic surgeon, Ioan Lascar, who said he would try to restore the man's urinary function but that he was unlikely to recover normal sexual activity.

Doctor Ciomu has been banned from entering an operating theatre for two months pending the results of an investigation by the medical council, Oprescu said.

Meanwhile the wife of the unfortunate patient said she was suing Ciomu.