'Newcomer syndrome' led to death

Teenager Wayne Jowett died in February last year after two junior doctors wrongly injected an anti-cancer drug into his spine instead of a vein.

The 18-year-old had been receiving chemotherapy for leukaemia at the Queen's Medical Centre in Nottingham but was in remission and near the end of his treatment.

He suffered agonising pain as the drug caused creeping paralysis and died four weeks later from multiple organ failure. A highly critical report into Wayne's death concluded that Dr Feda Mulhem and Dr David Morton were suffering from "newcomer syndrome" and made mistakes out of inexperience.

The doctors have been suspended and the Crown Prosecution Service is considering whether to bring criminal charges over the case.

Wayne was receiving two different drugs - Cytosine, injected into the spine, and Vincristine, administered through a vein. Because of the dangers associated with Vincristine, the hospital had a policy of not giving patients the two drugs on the same day.

But Dr Mulhem, who had recently been promoted from Senior House Officer to Registrar and had only been at the hospital for two days, failed to notice those instructions.

He instructed Dr Morton, a Senior House Officer who had just one year's experience, to administer Cytosine into the spine but then wrongly ordered the Vincristine to be injected spinally as well.

Dr Mulhem admitted he had been thinking of another spinally administered drug. Dr Morton said he was surprised at the instruction but assumed his more senior colleague knew what he was doing.

The report said the doctors appeared to have experienced the "newcomer syndrome".

They failed to recognise their assumptions were at variance with reality which led to errors of judgment being made and subsequently to Wayne's death.