surgery in Bermuda have been disputed.

On Tuesday, King Edward VII Memorial Hospital announced Dr. James Brockenbrough's June 29 surgery was a first for Bermuda.

But yesterday the widow of Bermudian doctor John Stubbs said her husband performed the same operation more than 20 years ago.

The procedure, called carotid endarterectomy, cleans out the carotid artery -- the major blood supplier which runs from the neck to the brain.

According to Robin Stubbs, her late husband performed the same surgery at KEMH 22 years ago.

Mrs. Stubbs said her husband operated on Sydney Oatley, who is now deceased, on March 26, 1976.

"Mr. Oatley's widow said that my husband told her, at the time of the surgery, that it was the first time that a carotid endarterectomy was done in Bermuda,'' Mrs. Stubbs added. "And he told her that it was the first time he had ever done the procedure.'' Disease in the carotid artery can account for about 80 percent of strokes.