Cambridge professor ‘deliberately failed IQ test to aid £1m brain injury claim'

Telegraph

4 hours ago

A University of Cambridge professor has been accused of deliberately failing IQ and memory tests to boost a £1 million brain damage claim.
Dr Mohamed Atef Hakmi, 64, is suing the NHS for more than £1 million, claiming a failure to promptly diagnose a stroke left him with permanent brain damage and physical disabilities.
Seeking damages the High Court, he claimed a failure to promptly diagnose him meant he missed the chance of vital treatment.
But Dr Hakmi has been forced to deny deliberately throwing a pre-trial IQ test after scoring only a 'very bad' 84, putting him well below the UK average even though he still lectures at one of the world's most prestigious universities.
Dr Hakmi had to give up orthopaedic surgery after suffering two strokes stroke at home in 2016.
After the first, he was given clot-busting thrombolysis treatment and made a very good recovery, returning to the operating theatre within weeks, the court heard.
He suffered a second stroke in November that year, while he worked late at night on paperwork, Robert Kellar KC, his barrister, told Judge David Pittaway KC.
Spotting the symptoms, Dr Hakmi went to Lister Hospital in Stevenage, calling ahead and telling staff that he was having a stroke, said the barrister.
However, the Royal College of Surgeons fellow says he was told he would not be offered thrombolysis because he was 'not having a stroke', with a remote doctor suggesting it could be simply a migraine or epilepsy.
It was not until hours later that his stroke was diagnosed, at which point it was too late to treat him with the same drugs.
Dr Hakmi accuses the NHS of 'cumulative and inter-related' failings, including a 'cursory and sub-standard examination' in A&E and the fact that he was only able to speak to the remote stroke specialist on the phone because of the NHS's Telemedicine system malfunctioning.
He was left with reduced sensation in his fingers and toes, fatigue in his right arm, and a brain injury causing short-term memory impairment, impaired concentration, reduced processing speed and 'executive deficits'.
He no longer has any private practice and has returned to the NHS on restricted duties, the barrister added, saying: 'He no longer does any surgery. But for the breach of duty, the claimant is likely to have made a good recovery.
'He would have been able to return to all types of surgery that did not require a high degree of manual dexterity.'
'Very surprising' results
But John de Bono KC, representing the NHS, denied Dr Hakmi was due any damages payout at all and accused him of hamming-up his symptoms while being assessed before trial.
He said Dr Hakmi scored only 84 on an IQ test, putting him below 86 per cent of the general population, adding: 'That's very bad – it suggests it would be hard to function as a surgeon or as an educator at that level.'
Dr Hakmi was assessed by two neuropsychologists, who also performed memory tests, with 'very surprising' and sometimes 'astonishing' results, which Mr De Bono said raised 'serious concern about whether he was putting forward his best effort'.
'You scored astonishingly badly for someone operating at the level you are describing this morning,' Mr De Bono said, referring to the fact Dr Hakmi had spoken with pride in the witness box of his work with the university.
'Is it possible when you went to be tested that you performed worse than you should have done because you were trying to demonstrate to them just how big the impact had been?'
Dr Hakmi denied performing worse than he should have, telling the court he found the tests 'exhausting'.
He said: 'I definitely have a memory problem, slow effort. I know definitely I'm not as before I had the stroke.'
The damages claim is against the East and North Hertfordshire NHS Trust, which runs the Lister Hospital, and the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, where the doctor who spoke to Dr Hakmi by phone was based.
The trusts deny blame, saying Dr Hakmi was 'at all times treated with reasonable care and skill by highly competent clinicians'.
The Trust said he was assessed as being unsuitable for thrombolysis treatment because his symptoms were not serious enough and it was too long after their onset.
Such treatment can also be risky, carrying a significant risk of brain haemorrhage and death, said the NHS barrister, and even if Dr Hakmi had been given it, the outcome would probably have been the same.