A urologist has been reprimanded after leaving a public hospital trainee to perform surgery unsupervised as he drove off to operate on his private patients at another hospital.

In a decision published last Tuesday, the NSW Medical Professional Standards Committee said the surgeon had also pre-signed count sheets and safety checklists for surgical patients on his list at St George Hospital in Sydney.

In November 2015, he spent about 20 minutes in the hospital’s operating theatre during one procedure performed by the trainee before leaving, allegedly without saying where he was going.

The trainee subsequently completed four more surgeries unsupervised, while the urologist operated on his private patients at the Mater Hospital in Sydney.