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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

#81

Post by ramblerman »

DanBC wrote: post #77
ramblerman wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's important to the analogy then lets say we caught him driving super drunk but he hadn't hurt anyone yet. Should we let him off the hook?

That's a poor analogy, because people driving super drunk have the potential to cause very great harm. If we're sticking to car analogies he wrote his name in the dirt on the back of a truck, but the dirt was abrasive and so he also scratched his initials into the paint.

So he didn't increase the risk to the patient in any way, however small?

That is, a patient who gets signed upon and one who doesn't following the exact same procedure for the rest are at an identical risk?

Re: Surgeon admits to branding initials on patients' livers

#82

Post by TrinTragula »

dEnigma wrote: post #41
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.

Just for your information, and I'm not trying to be mean here: You probably meant "fathom", not "phantom".

Thanks, english is not my first language, if that's an excuse. I try!

Re: Surgeon admits to branding initials on patients' livers

#83

Post by King-Aaron »

hycaria wrote: post #50
King-Aaron wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is it certain that a couple inches of laser beam scar tissue in a liver has not, and will not in the future cause any medical issues for the patients in question? It could well lead to Cirrhosis of the liver. Not to mention Adhesion that could become painful. I'm not too sure how likely either issue is, however I wouldn't like to assume that scarring your liver is going to be completely free of complications... Tho…

>It could well lead to Cirrhosis of the liver. Not to mention Adhesion that could become painful. Do you have any medical background ? Did you ever use a coagulator ? Or ever saw a liver with your own eyes and the eventual scars those get because of routinely occurring small infarctii or such ? I doubt so, as this is utter bullshit. > I'm not too sure how likely either issue is Not likely at all in this universe

> Do you have any medical background ?

Briefly, working as a theatre technician in coronary intervention. We used diathermy etc in the lab.

Re: Surgeon admits to branding initials on patients' livers

#84

Post by Fnoord »

andrewstuart wrote: post #29
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…

This is why there's so many ethical issues coming to the forefront these days ... people grade things into "acceptable" levels of bad behaviour.

I don't see anyone in this thread claiming this is acceptable. What some people are doing/saying is putting it in proportion: compared to things like cutting someone an arm loose (either intentionally, or unintentionally), murder, assault, and robbery this is far less bad. Because there's no permanent damage, and nothing was taken away. The initials even get removed over time. Is it bad? Oh yeah, it is, because the relationship between these 2 is professional and top down (doctor being authority on the matter, patient being sedated). I haven't seen anyone arguing this person shouldn't be punished.

> people grade things into "acceptable" levels of bad behaviour.

So I don't see anyone grading anything into acceptable levels of (bad) behaviour. Putting behaviour in proportion to find adequate punishment is part of the judiciary system which you can find back as working decently since trias politica invention.

Re: Surgeon admits to branding initials on patients' livers

#86

Post by synicalx »

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?

I mean really, I'd probably find that funny but I'd be inclined to fire the nanny. Although really I'm not sure why I'd have a nanny in the first place, that would probably be my first line of investigation in this scenario.
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