Vascular surgeon James Brockenbrough has broken his silence about the administration of Bermuda's only hospital and the aftermath of the revelation of a drug conviction in California.

Speaking exclusively to on the eve of a hearing by the Medical Staff Committee of the Bermuda Hospital's Board which will apparently decide his fate, Dr. Brockenbrough alleged that he is the target of a campaign by doctors and administrators of King Edward VII Memorial Hospital to get rid of a black American whistleblower ? which the hospital denies.

Dr. Brockenbrough has closed down his practice in the past year and returned to the US after seven years in Bermuda following newspaper reports last year revealing confidential information ? that could only have come from a highly placed source.

The former head of the Bermuda Medical Association and president of the Active Medical Staff demanded to be drug tested by KEMH and was given a urine and a hair test.

The urine test proved to be negative but Dr. Brockenbrough's troubles grew when the hair test showed that he had been exposed to cocaine sometime in the 70 days before the test. A second hair test returned the same result.

But, Dr. Brockenbrough said, recent research has shown that hair tests for cocaine are problematic with positive results being found for people ? including children ? who have had no contact with the drug.

"I can still practise in California, all I have to do is renew the licence," Dr. Brockenbrough said. "I want an apology, but more importantly, I want to be exonerated of wrongdoing because the evidence is just not there.

"To answer your question, yes, I am being railroaded, and they are out to get me! I have and probably will continue to have difficulty here in America until this matter is resolved.

"My privileges (in Bermuda) expired as of September 2005. There is no reason to have a hearing except to harm me. They want to have me deregistered in Bermuda," he explained.

"My understanding is the Medical Council can only do that if I was deemed impaired or if there is something negative from the hospital. Some of my colleagues at the hospital are determined to accomplish that result.

"I really want them to say now and forever, that I performed an exemplary service for KEMH and Bermuda. I really do not want to come back and practise full time, but I want the ability to be also to do so if I so desire. I will have to reapply for hospital privileges and obtain a work permit but I do not see doing that. I just do not want my registration to be cancelled," Dr. Brockenbrough explained.

When contacted yesterday, Jonathan Brewin, BHB chairman, said: "The Bermuda Hospitals Board, in accordance with our bylaws, holds all physicians accountable to the same standards in the interest of patient care.

"We have not released any information about this case for publication in the media. We are in direct contact with Dr. Brockenbrough's legal representatives and can't comment further at this time."

Outspoken about patient care and administrative issues here from the start, Dr. Brockenbrough clashed with KEMH doctors and says that none of his complaints and suggestions have been addressed by the hospital.

"The doctors who run King Edward are in turmoil, divided by issues of fairness, professional standing and opinions on what constitutes acceptable behaviour," the Philadelphia native said.

"They are diametrically divided on issues such as why some doctors seem to be treated differently from others by the Hospitals Board, how much patients should know about their treatments, and what constitutes ethical behaviour."

He added: "I have been caught up in this turmoil simply by trying to practice surgery and medicine to the same standards as in the United States.

"And I now stand accused not of the poor practice of medicine, but of using illicit drugs, an allegation I refute in the strongest possible terms.

"It is significant that there has not been an attempt to address the issues of patient care at KEMH which I have brought up, which would require discussion and explanation," Dr. Brockenbrough continued. "But instead they attack my character directly by marking me as the target of a zero-tolerance policy resulting from a simple and single test.

Dr. Brockenbrough concluded: "This is a classic and elegant expedient to get rid of a troublemaker, or whistleblower."

The Island's first permanent vascular surgeon, the 1972 Howard graduate says he was not welcomed at KEMH because doctors saw "political interference and cronyism" in his appointment ? a direct reference to his decades-long friendship with Dr. Brown and other Howard trained doctors here.

"I thought I knew the kinds of ways that medical practice can go awry; but I had never encountered the kind of concerted effort by a medical community to control the behaviour of an individual doctor who was not causing harm, simply because of a fear that the public might actually find out facts about what was going wrong at the hospital.

"There is a widely accepted code of silence within the medical community, which even transcends the first rule of Hippocrates, which is 'to do no harm' ? this approach is foreign to me. I come from a background where there is peer review in medicine, and mistakes are used as learning opportunities to prevent further similar errors. This does not exist in any practical form in Bermuda.

However, what does exist is a very effective rumour mill, and I became the victim of it. Ironically there was a grain of truth in the rumours that started to circulate. No human is perfect, and I am human.

"I prevailed upon the EAP staff to repeat the test because I knew it had to be wrong since I did not take drugs."

When the second hair test returned as positive, Dr. Brockenbrough said he was in "shock" and "before I could figure out what was going on, I found that the entire story was in the newspaper".

Before there was any review of the situation by the hospital and his peers, someone "at the top level of KEMH management" made confidential information public, to "short circuit any due process to publicly destroy my reputation and career in Bermuda".

Dr. Brockenbrough added: "There was never any allegation or suggestion that my patient care had ever been deficient or that patients had ever been put at risk.

"This was not the first, nor will it be the last, false positive test obtained in medicine. All doctors are aware of the fallibility of medical tests, which can occur for a wide range of reasons. Tests are always interpreted in the context in which they are obtained.

"Who would volunteer to take a test they know will incriminate them, especially when they know there is any number of colleagues just waiting to have that opportunity?"