Wait, what?! You read that right.
Yesterday, in Birmingham crown court, surgeon Simon Bramhall pleaded guilty to branding his patients livers with his initials during transplant surgeries.
During one of his surgeries in 2013, one of his colleagues noticed a small “S.B.” written on the patient’s liver. His actions were then brought to the attention of his superiors. Bramhall had a disciplinary meeting, but “was not dismissed.”
However, he later resigned and said the situation was “A bit raw.” (That’s an actual quote. Perhaps as raw as his initials in his patients’ organs?)
In February, the General Medical Council issued Bramhall a formal warning which stated the situation “risks bringing the profession into disrepute and it must not be repeated. Whilst this failing in itself is not so serious as to require any restriction on Mr Bramhall’s registration, it is necessary in response to issue this formal warning.”
With Bramhall’s pleas, it has become clear “that which he did was not just ethically wrong but criminally wrong,” said Tony Badenoch, who was prosecuting the case. The judge ruled that the case concerned the physical damage to the livers, not the emotional damage to the patients themselves.
Of course, many medical professionals (and human beings in general) are severely freaked out and appalled by someone writing their name inside another human’s body without their consent. As Joyce Robins, one of the founders of Patient Concern, said, “This is a patient we are talking about, not an autograph book.”
But, one former patient, Tracy Scriven, had a differing opinion: “Even if he did put his initials on a transplanted liver, is it really that bad? I wouldn’t have cared if he did it to me. The man saved my life.”
If you also think being branded isn’t too bad of a fate, check out some other ways doctors in the U.S. have carved their names into patients. Yep! No matter where you live, you can get some crazy surgeries.