I've never had to get a major
operation like a liver transplant, but I imagine it's pretty scary. Lying in a hospital bed, waiting to get knocked out with anesthesia, so a surgeon can slice you open and rearrange your insides - ahhh! It's like a horror movie. Anybody would be tempted to freak out, their mind swimming with morbid thoughts of what could go wrong.
That's why it's so important to trust your doctors. The best doctors are total professionals. They have a comforting bedside manner and they know exactly what to say to put twitchy patients at ease.
British surgeon Simon Bramhall, 53, used to be quite well-respected in his field. But today he pleaded guilty to two counts of assault for a crime that is without legal precedent in criminal court: burning his initials onto the livers of two patients. What's more, the prosecutor said, "It was done in the presence of colleagues." Great job, colleagues.
Dr. Bramhall accomplished this disturbing act by using a medical instrument called an argon beam coagulator. It's typically used to seal bleeding blood vessels with an electric beam, or to highlight an area that they should work on. However, Dr. Bramhall used it for a slightly different purpose - graffiti-tagging livers with his initials, "S.B." I can see why he pleaded guilty, because there's no defense for something like that.
The act was obviously horrific, but it didn't cause any major damage. The Guardian reports that "The marks left by argon are not thought to impair the organ's function and usually disappear by themselves." However, that didn't happen for these two patients.
Dr. Bramhall performed these
surgeries back in 2013. When a colleague of his did a follow-up surgery on one of patients, he discovered the etching "S.B." Bramhall was immediately suspended from his post at Birmingham's Queen Elizabeth hospital (and probably got a really bad Yelp review). Then an investigation was conducted, which lead to the discovery of his initials marked on the liver of a second patient.
In 2014, Dr. Bramhall tendered his resignation, saying, “I made the decision...I would hand in my notice. It is a bit raw and I have to move on.” "It is a bit raw"? Sounding like Hannibal Lechter just makes you seem creepier, dude. Like you were marking your food in the office refrigerator so they don't throw it out on Friday.
Most people were outraged by the incident. As patient rights advocate Joyce Robbins told The Guardian, "This is a patient we are talking about, not an autograph book." However, one of Dr. Bramhall's former patients, Tracy Scriven, actually defended him. She told The Birmingham Mail, "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."
Well,
surgery just got a little bit scarier. Thanks Dr. Bramhall.
