Paediatric consultant faces hearing

A paediatric consultant whose two-and-a-half-year old patient had an unnecessary tongue tie operation is facing five allegations of poor professional performance at a Medical Council fitness-to-practise hearing today.

Professor Martin Corbally, who was a paediatric surgeon at Our Lady's Children's Hospital in Crumlin, faces five allegations of poor professional performance in relation to his treatment of Patient X.

The two-and-a-half-year-old girl had been assessed by him as a private patient in February 2010 and required an upper labial frenulum, to release a fold of skin attaching her upper lip to the gum.

He delegated the operation to a fourth-year registrar, Dr Farhan Tareen, who instead carried out a tongue tie operation, a lingual frenulectomy to release the fold of skin holding the tongue to the floor of the mouth.