Lawyers for Associate Professor Munjed Al Muderis have taken the first step in starting defamation proceedings against Nine and its newspapers, after the media group published claims of medical negligence, including leaving a patient with a maggot-ridden wound.

A 40-page ‘concerns notice’ has listed more than 60 defamatory imputations made against the doctor by Nine, following on from a recent investigation by 60 Minutes, The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald, into the osseointegration surgeon.

“Since 8 September, Professor Al Muderis has been the subject of one of the most unfair, unjustified and unlawful attacks by a mass media organisation on the professionalism and character of a medical doctor in recent times,” it alleges.

According to the media reports Professor Al Muderis had allegedly failed to care for patients after their surgeries, leaving them in pain, mutilated or wheelchair-bound.