Two Doctors Lose Duties at Hospital Alfred I. duPont Officials Cite State and Federal Probes

Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children has removed two
physicians with its cardiac center from their duties, citing afederal and state investigation into the use of a device thatprops open an artery during a heart operation.

Dr. William Norwood and Dr. John Murphy are “no longer providing professional or administrative services” on behalf of Nemours’ Cardiac Center at the hospital, officials said. The hospital refused to say whether the doctors are still employed there.

Norwood did not return a call seeking comment.

Victor Battaglia, an attorney representing Murphy, said the
focus of the investigation was the particular device used, acovered stent, not the procedure, which he said is very common.

The hospital would not provide more details about the
investigation or the heart operation in question. It has stopped performing the procedure.

The Nemours Foundation, which owns the hospital in Rockland, recruited Norwood in 1997 and opened a $5 million Cardiac Center, designed to his specifications and staffed with doctors he hand-picked.

Norwood is world-renowned for developing a three-step procedure
to repair a heart defect in which the left side of the heart is
not capable of sending blood to the lungs for oxygen. It occurs in one out of every 5,000 babies born, according to the University of Michigan. In the United States, about 1,000 babies are born with the condition each year.

Norwood invented his procedure for hypoplastic left heart
syndrome in 1980. Before that, the only option for children who
suffered from the condition was a heart transplant.

The lack of detail about the federal and state investigation has left parents with children in the hospital confused and angry, one advocate said.

“There are many very distraught families who clearly have a
right to know what the focus of the investigation is, as it
could have serious implications for their children,” said Mona Barmash, president of the Congenital Heart Information Network, a Yardley, Pa.-based nonprofit that provides support for parents of children with those conditions.

She said many family members were “understandably upset and
confused and devastated to learn that their child’s physicians are no longer available to them.”

David Bailey, chief operating officer of the Nemours Foundation, said in a statement that the hospital is conducting its own investigation.

State Division of Public Health officials confirmed they were investigating a complaint, and U.S. Food and Drug Administration spokeswoman Sharon Snider said the federal agency is trying to figure out whether any procedures were violated, what products might have been involved and which patients might have been
affected.

She said the agency will notify any such patients.

Officials said Delaware’s Board of Medical Practice, which
handles disciplinary actions for doctors, could not comment. Norwood and Murphy have never been disciplined by the board.

Norwood was director of cardiac surgery at the Children’s
Hospital of Philadelphia from 1984 to 1994 and previously worked at the Children’s Hospital Medical Center in Boston. Before moving to duPont, he headed a cardiac program in Switzerland.

Murphy graduated from the University of Vermont in 1975 and did residency training in pediatric cardiology at the University of
Pittsburgh Medical Center, according to his profile listed with the American Medical Association.

The hospital would not say how long Murphy has been at the
cardiac center.