UK Surgeon in Trouble for Branding Patients

As if patients scheduled for surgery didn’t have enough things to worry about before going under the knife – another potential worry can now be added to the growing list. A surgeon from Queen Elizabeth Hospital in England has been suspended from duty after his initials were found inscribed on the liver of one of his patients. It turns out that this particular surgeon (at least in this case) used an argon plasma coagulation tool to autograph his work.

I guess surgery could be somewhat likened to artwork, but who would even think to sign internal body parts? I mean who’s going to see it? Is your new kidney going to be worth more because a certain surgeon branded you with his John Hancock? Or, did this particular doctor sign the liver in case another doctor eventually had to work on it and could easily track him down if he had any questions? Your guess is as good as mine.

It turns out that the surgeon in question is a very reputable doctor in England named Simon Bramhall. You might be wondering how he was caught in the first place – another surgeon had to operate on a former patient of his and plainly found the initials on the liver and reported it.

The hospital wasted no time in suspending Dr. Bramhall, and a source had this to say regarding his actions:

“I’m hoping this is just a mistake, I don’t know what would possess someone to do that to another human being. What gives a person the right to do that to another? It could have happened hundreds of times, who knows. It was just luck that this incident was brought to light…”

As the source stated, it is pretty much impossible to know just how many people are walking around with Dr. Bramhall’s initials on their innermost parts.

What do you think of this surgeon’s actions? It seems like they go slightly against the Hippocratic Oath.

[Image via sploid.gizmodo]

SOURCE: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/nhs/10536883/Surgeon-suspended-over-claims-he-branded-a-patients-liver.html