'Drunk' surgeon arrested as he demands to operate on patient

Published on Friday 10 March 2006 01:10

A CALIFORNIA hospital's chief of neurosurgery was wrestled to an operating room floor by policemen and arrested after allegedly throwing a drunken fit when a nurse refused to let him operate, according to reports last night.

Federico Castro-Moure, 45, was arrested late on Monday at Highland Hospital on suspicion of being under the influence of alcohol and interfering with the duty of officers, Alameda County Sheriff's Lieutenant Jim Knudson told the Oakland Tribune newspaper.

Mr Castro-Moure became belligerent after insisting on operating on a man who broke his ankles and fractured his spine in a two-storey fall, according to the sheriff's department.

Two other surgeons had determined the injuries were not life-threatening, but Mr Castro-Moure insisted the man would die if he did not receive immediate attention, the report said.

He "threw a fit" and began yelling and cursing at staff when they told him equipment for the procedure needed to be transferred from another hospital, according to the newspaper.

When the surgical instruments arrived, a nurse refused to allow Mr Castro-Moure to operate until they could be sterilised.

Mr Castro-Moure threatened the nurse by punching his fist in his hand. He took a swing at deputies after they were called to intervene.

"Do you know that I am a (expletive) doctor, and I'm going to do what I want," he said, according to a witness quoted by the newspaper.

He was booked into Glenn Dyer Detention Facility in Oakland and was released several hours later, a jail official said yesterday morning.

Mr Castro-Moure was placed on leave while the hospital investigates the matter, hospital spokesman David Cone said.

A woman who answered the phone at Mr Castro-Moure's home yesterday morning said that the doctor had no comment to make.