Dr Paul Moffitt has a 67-year-old swab that was removed from one of his patients. He writes about it in his book My Way

Now it is a framed piece of memorabilia in Dr Paul Moffitt’s home office. 

The retired diabetes specialist has written about removing the swab from a woman’s body while he was working as a GP in Cessnock in his book My Way, which offers medical advice and shares some of his life story. 

The 92-year-old said the swab had been accidentally left in the woman’s body during an operation and it wasn’t discovered until 11 years later when she started experiencing pelvic pain. A scan had another doctor thinking it was a ovarian cyst. 

When Dr Moffitt operated, after the patient said she wouldn’t have anyone else do it, he found a large mass attached to the pelvic wall.

He called in a specialist surgeon who took over the operation and found the culprit. 

“I hid the swab in my left hand as we finished the operation so none of the nurses knew of the swab,” Dr Moffitt said. 

“It does not have the radiopaque thread through it that makes it possible to detect present day surgical swabs by x-ray.”

Dr Moffitt has written the book to encourage better patient care across the country. 

“I have only written about things in my life that have happened that other people have been unlikely to experience,” he said. 

Dr Moffitt, who lives near Maitland, started the first diabetes education centre in Australia and lobbied the state and federal governments for money to roll-out diabetes health care programs. 

His work decreased hospital admissions for patients with the disease and helped improve their quality of life through education.

He was one of 1000 students to start a medical degree in 1947 and he graduated six years later with 169 of his peers.

Cessnock was the first place he practised as a GP before moving to London to study to become a specialist.

A chance to train with his English lecturer, who was a diabetes specialist, led him to train in the field. 

He was one of 50 people to apply for the position.

His book is available at McDonalds Bookshop in Maitland, The Book Den in Cessnock and at MacLeans Bookstore in Newcastle.