NEW DELHI – Indian police arrested the physician parents of a 15-year-old boy who allegedly carried out a Caesarean section under their supervision in an attempt to set a world record, an official said Monday.
An Indian Medical Association chapter in the southern state of Tamil Nadu said last week Dr. K. Murugesan showed a video recording of his son, Dhileepan Raj, performing a Caesarean birth in an apparent bid to gain a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records as the youngest surgeon.
The video allegedly showed Murugesan anesthetizing the patient before the boy started the operation in his father's maternity hospital in Manaparai city, said Venkatesh Prasad, secretary of the medical association.
"Both (parents) have been arrested," Ashish Vachani, an official from the Tiruchirappalli district in Tamil Nadu, told The Associated Press.
The family could not be reached for comment Monday. Unconfirmed media reports have said Raj's parents denied the surgery took place.
Murugesan told the medical association he wanted to see his son's name in the Guinness Book of World Records, Prasad said.
The baby was born with a lump on the spinal cord, Prasad said, but the birth defect had nothing to do with the Caesarean surgery.
Amarilis Espinoza, a spokeswoman for Guinness World Records, said in an e-mail Guinness does not endorse such attempts because they encourage the practice of "bad medicine."
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