Letter from John R Malott, Former Ambassador to Malaysia to a Malaysian news portal

The health minister and Dr Hoogland
John R Malott
Laguna Niguel, California

Somebody at the Ministry of Health has failed his or her ‘Internet test’, and Health Minister Chua Jui Meng should be embarrassed. According to your report, Anwar delaying surgery at his own peril, House told (April 17), Chua said that his staff had carried out a search on the Internet on Dr Thomas Hoogland and found nothing on him!

Your article quotes the minister as saying, "Over the past five years there has not been any literature on this doctor. If he is a specialist, he should have at least one or two reports in the medical journals." Chua also claimed that Hoogland has conducted only 300 to 400 surgeries.

It's a government official's worst nightmare. You end up looking foolish because your staff has not done their homework. So let's look at the facts, which actually are very easy to find.

First, the Alpha Klinik has a very prominent website - in six languages. As head of the clinic's back surgery division, Hoogland is featured very prominently on the site. Click on the section called "back", and there is a portrait of Hoogland, which describes his professional qualifications. This is a man who has published 22 scientific articles, contributed to four books, and spoken at over 100 medical conferences. He is a member of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, the German Society for Orthopaedics and Traumatology, the North American Spine Society, the Scientific Society for Spinal Microsurgery (of which he is president), the International Society for Minimal Intervention Spine Surgery, and the Society for Spine Surgery Research.

And although Chua says Hoogland has performed only 300 to 400 surgeries, the truth is that he performed over 8,000 - including over 6,000 minimal invasive spine operations - during his career as a surgeon.

Chua has every right to be embarrassed for misinforming Parliament. But there is a second issue. The minister has twice criticised Hoogland's alleged “lack of medical ethics" for stating, factually, that the KL General Hospital does not have all the necessary equipment, facilities, and experience to conduct endoscopic surgery.

Now, perhaps, Chua would like to consider his own ethical question: Is it right for a government's health minister to stand in his nation's legislature and falsely disparage the qualifications and experience of a prominent international surgeon?