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Surgeon admits to branding initials on patients' livers

cnn.com

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Re: Surgeon admits to branding initials on patients' livers

#51

Post by benchaney »

Ultimatt wrote: post #46
TrinTragula wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I cannot phantom a reason to put your health at a risk just to accomplish the ego of someone who should just do his work. I personally find it humilating. Care to explain better? Sometimes I'm really curious about how someone can have such a radically different view from me on such simple arguments, and I always love finding the reasoning behind that.

I can see this argument its not exactly burried. The article states there was no associated health risk. The more general point is a surgeon that openly requires signing your organ, is better than one less well trained surgeon in the world. From a utilitarian pov. Not everyone would necessarily care, like you do. Which is definitely true if you look at the range of responses on here. That this guy did it without cons…

> The article states there was no associated health risk

The article says the following

> Bramhall's handiwork didn't appear to damage either liver

These are not even close to the same thing.

Re: Surgeon admits to branding initials on patients' livers

#52

Post by jacquesm »

whiddershins wrote: post #42

Argh I don't know enough abut medical ethics to know where the line is but for all the people rejoicing in the guy resigning, losing his license, being convicted of a crime, or any other horrible outcome ... Please, please, really consider what it means to ruin someone's life when advocating for a certain punishment. There's a whole range of reactions between "eh, no big deal" and "destroy his career!" Whatever the m…

I know enough about medical ethics that this guy is lucky to get away with just losing his license, being convicted of a crime would be a nice touch.

Keep in mind that you're on an operating table, passed out and 100% dependent on those working on you. To treat you like a graffiti wall is not only disrespectful, it wastes time under narcosis which carries some minimal risk, and potentially could lead to complications (though not related, complications were the reason this was discovered in the first place).

Let's say that treating this guy like a trendsetter would definitely not have my vote. I've been operated on a couple of times in my life and I'm pretty sure that the surgeons that did that would be far more angry about this than a patient ever would be because this guy damaged all of the medical profession for his personal gratification.

Re: Surgeon admits to branding initials on patients' livers

#54

Post by dvt »

ggreer wrote: post #35

This isn't the first time I've heard of such a thing. From When the Air Hits Your Brain: Tales from Neurosurgery by Frank Vertosick Jr: > “He’s a big fan of yours, too, pal, ever since the bone flap thing.” The bone flap incident had occurred early in Gary’s chief year. Fred and Gary were performing a cranial operation to remove a benign brain tumor. Fred had performed the entire operation himself—a grave insult to a…

Great passage, thanks for sharing. It's a bit unnerving that this kind of thing may not be as rare as it might seem (engraving bones during a brain surgery of all things).

Re: Surgeon admits to branding initials on patients' livers

#55

Post by Aeolun »

chesimov wrote: post #49
c3534l wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems way worse than those things. Relationship problems, nepotism, and drug and alcohol abuse are problems. But permanently vandalizing a living human body while the person is unconscious goes far beyond the pale. The person should do jail time in addition to being permanently barred from medicine. Defiling a patient's body for "fun" should be taken extremely seriously.

To me, a doctor drunk at work is far, far worse. I would much rather have a doctor initial my liver but still do a good job of fixing my problem, than have a drunk doctor operate on me (or treat me in any sense actually). I suspect a lot of the outrage is to do with the insult to human dignity that initialing someone's organs brings. But look at the outcomes.

Yeah, if someone's initialing my liver, that's probably a good indication the operation went well :P

Re: Surgeon admits to branding initials on patients' livers

#56

Post by jacquesm »

simplyfantast wrote: post #31
dvt wrote: post #23

The fact that people are defending this guy, or treating it as "no big deal" blows my mind. Just off the top of my head, a few ethical issues: - Breach of patient-doctor trust -- a very asymmetric relationship - Breach of the Hippocratic Oath (you don't *burn* healthy tissue without good reason) - Permanent bodily modification without consent - *Multiple* offenses Should he have been terminated? Does the punishment f…

I've been a physician for about 16 years. I won't defend the guy, it's just that I routinely see things that I would consider worse: doctors drunk at work, doctors who sleep with medical students in exchange for good evaluations, rampant cheating in medical school, rampant stimulant abuse, and the list goes on and on... It's unethical for sure, but I guess my gut reaction is that it's not necessarily an offense that…

Doctors are people too, so whatever ails the general population should not be a surprise to be found among doctors. Drug abuse was pretty common (after all, easy access to drugs) as was sexual abuse of doctors with patients. Even so, to treat your patients as a tree to carve your name in when they're powerless to do anything about it has a deliberate component that is inexcusable way beyond doctors simply being human.

Also, it would help if you did not include the word 'fantast' in a novelty account while making claims of being a physician for 16 years and then making light of this. Either you really are a fantast or you are not exactly a credit to your profession if you really believe that this does not warrant termination. As a patient I'm pretty cool with it, if I go under to trust a doctor with my life I'd rather not they use me as a calligraphy scratchpad and if it takes one doctor out of all those out there to be made an example of then it's a loss but not a large enough loss to offset the breach of trust between doctors and patients the world over by this guy.

Re: Surgeon admits to branding initials on patients' livers

#57

Post by ggg9990 »

kaffeemitsahne wrote: post #44
ggg9990 wrote: post #28

Can't believe anyone is defending this creep. What if your nanny wrote "FUCKSTICK" in washable marker on your baby's face but made sure to wash it off before you came home?

Well, then what?

Would you fire her?

Re: Surgeon admits to branding initials on patients' livers

#58

Post by jacquesm »

chesimov wrote: post #49
c3534l wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems way worse than those things. Relationship problems, nepotism, and drug and alcohol abuse are problems. But permanently vandalizing a living human body while the person is unconscious goes far beyond the pale. The person should do jail time in addition to being permanently barred from medicine. Defiling a patient's body for "fun" should be taken extremely seriously.

To me, a doctor drunk at work is far, far worse. I would much rather have a doctor initial my liver but still do a good job of fixing my problem, than have a drunk doctor operate on me (or treat me in any sense actually). I suspect a lot of the outrage is to do with the insult to human dignity that initialing someone's organs brings. But look at the outcomes.

What if your liver developed a problem due to getting initialed? What if every doctor operating on you felt that carving their name in you was their right? How about the entire team? After all, the outcomes are what matters right... Really, this is improper, it's nothing to do with human dignity, it's got everything to do with trust and consent. And consent is - in case you didn't know it - a rather large plank in our doctor-patient relationships. Doctors are supposed to do what's necessary, frivolous actions are not supposed to be part of the package.

Re: Surgeon admits to branding initials on patients' livers

#59

Post by hycaria »

dvt wrote: post #23

The fact that people are defending this guy, or treating it as "no big deal" blows my mind. Just off the top of my head, a few ethical issues: - Breach of patient-doctor trust -- a very asymmetric relationship - Breach of the Hippocratic Oath (you don't *burn* healthy tissue without good reason) - Permanent bodily modification without consent - *Multiple* offenses Should he have been terminated? Does the punishment f…

To me this is really no big deal. Honestly I think people are overreacting because they have absolutely no idea of anything about everything that's inside bodies. Having used coagulators and seen hundreds of livers (pathologist) and the eventual macroscopical but benign scars they get because of ("naturally occurring") small infarctii or such, this has really no consequences whatsoever. I don't know how it worked in this case, but there's a reason doctors are disciplinally judged by their peers in some countries.

But it's really dumb, and should lead to disciplinary consequences (although his reputation is already badly damaged) because of the paranoia it triggers in people about doctors.

What I wonder is why the surgeons who discovered it got the problem out in the public. What was possibly their goal ?

Re: Surgeon admits to branding initials on patients' livers

#60

Post by jacquesm »

gadders wrote: post #34
dvt wrote: post #23

The fact that people are defending this guy, or treating it as "no big deal" blows my mind. Just off the top of my head, a few ethical issues: - Breach of patient-doctor trust -- a very asymmetric relationship - Breach of the Hippocratic Oath (you don't *burn* healthy tissue without good reason) - Permanent bodily modification without consent - *Multiple* offenses Should he have been terminated? Does the punishment f…

If he'd done it to me, I'd have carved my name on his forehead. Completely unacceptable. //edit// I'm not sure why this evokes such a strong reaction in me. I think it's because it's like a claim of "ownership".

I would not have retaliated in kind but most likely would have retaliated in court, and I would have pulled out all the stops to inflict maximum damage. So I'm sympathetic to your response but to react to the point where the damage you do is worse than the damage that was done to you - in spite of the breach of trust - is probably not the best course of action. Also, I've seen that movie.
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