Indian-origin Dr Ashok Muralidaran under fire over 'wrong' heart surgery in Oregon: 'India gives fake degrees'

The $17 million lawsuit against the Orgon Health and Science University for a wrong heart surgery on a 13-year-old girl gave fodder to the anti-India narrative on social media as the doctor who performed the surgery was Dr Ashok Muralidaran, an Indian-origin pediatric cardiac surgeon.

Steven and Lori Stokes filed a $17 million lawsuit against OHSU and Dr Ashok Muralidaran, who performed the surgery, in Multnomah County Circuit Court, alleging negligence in medical care. On August 15, 2025, an OHSU surgical team led by Dr Muralidharan performed an open-heart surgery on a 13-year-old girl to implant a heart valve. The procedure required surgeons to stop her heart while she was on cardiac bypass but after the surgery, the doctors were unable to get her heart restarted, the lawsuit alleged. She was placed on extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, or ECMO, a system that mechanically pumps blood through a heart-lung machine, which reoxygenates it and circulates it back into the body.

The parents alleged that the doctors told them that their surgery went very well and that her heart was likely not working correctly because of the shock of surgery. They said ECMO would gradually restart her heart but that did not happen.




The following day, the girl remained in the intensive care unit and then she was moved to the operating room for exploratory surgery to determine what had happened. The parents said the girl was kept in the ICU with an open chest incision for three days but the doctors could not pinpoint any reason. The lawsuit said that they started discussing end-of-life decisions, including organ donation with the parents,

The parents took the risk of shifting her to Seattle Children's Hospital, where doctors said the valve was not positioned properly -- it was implanted upside down. After the surgery, her condition stabilized and then after more than a month, she was able to return home.

OHSU did not comment on the lawsuit, citing pending litigation.

'India gives fake degrees'

India-haters on social media pounced on the development and held Indian medical education responsible, though Dr Muralidaran did his advanced medical studies in the US. "India doctors are approved at a 50% standard passing grade (minimum requirement) in Indian medical schools for MBBS and similar programs, as regulated by the National Medical Commission (NMC). THAT'S AN "F" IN USA!!!" one wrote.

"They still have to take the medical board exam here. Regardless of where they attended medical school. They can’t just move here and start practicing," another replied to the 'India gives fake medical degree' debate.

"This guy did his fellowship at Yale. 1,000-1,500 retained surgical items every year in the USs. 10s of thousands dead from error. None of it tracks to where she thinks the problem is. Happy to debate immigration. But that’s not what this is," another added.



Dr Jesse Morse said the viral story is wrong. "Cardiothoracic surgery is one of the longest residencies and fellowships in American medicine...Remove the race card and appreciate the time, energy and dedication that this man put into saving thousands of people lives. Unfortunate outcome and we don’t have specifics of what happened, but this wasn’t a result of poorly training. Quite the contrary. This is one of the hardest specialities to achieve in American medicine," he said.
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