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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

#41

Post by dEnigma »

TrinTragula wrote: post #30
JSONwebtoken wrote: post #16

Honestly if he had asked for my consent, I might have thought about letting him brand my organ, it's not like anyone will see it or care. It might mean he takes more pride in his work and thus do a better job. I understand a professional wanting to "sign off" on their work; programmers, scientists, artists, engineers and so forth really like putting their name on things so why not doctors? If he were forthcoming mayb…

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".

Re: Surgeon admits to branding initials on patients' livers

#42

Post by whiddershins »

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 man did, what he didn't do was kill anyone or permanently curtail someone's professional life or put someone in a cell for days/months/years.

All of the punishments discussed also remove a functioning surgeon from being a contributing member of society.

I'm just saying, it's worth thinking about.

I feel like we all get so self-righteous and don't think about how much impact these punishments have. It's like, a friend of mine always argued we should really bring back public spanking. Sounds like a joke, but her point was there should be a type of punishment that is the equivalent of society yelling a whole bunch at you very very sternly and making you feel very very embarrassed and then you moving on with your life and continuing to contribute to society.

Re: Surgeon admits to branding initials on patients' livers

#43

Post by confiscate »

JSONwebtoken wrote: post #16

Honestly if he had asked for my consent, I might have thought about letting him brand my organ, it's not like anyone will see it or care. It might mean he takes more pride in his work and thus do a better job. I understand a professional wanting to "sign off" on their work; programmers, scientists, artists, engineers and so forth really like putting their name on things so why not doctors? If he were forthcoming mayb…

You assume that signing means the doctor takes more pride in his work. That is just an assumption. You don't know for sure.

It's possible he takes less pride too. For example, he might notice that out of 50 patients, only you consented to him signing on your organs for his ego. So it is possible that from his point of view, you don't care that much (compared to the other patients). So maybe try other things on your organs that he has been thinking about, maybe play around a little in other ways, test the boundaries a bit. Throw a few harmless things in there just for fun. Why not? You'd probably consent anyways.

Why risk trying those things on other patients when he can try it on you, the person who consented?

Re: Surgeon admits to branding initials on patients' livers

#45

Post by dEnigma »

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…

No matter where the line is, "branding a patient's liver" is clearly on the wrong side of it. I agree that the appropriate response is not "branding" the guy in return, by making sure his name is so tarnished that he'll never get a proper job again, but there has to be a strong reaction to what he's done. If he just gets a slap on the wrist he's probably tempted to do something similar again (since there seems to be some urge inside of him that made him do it in the first place).

Re: Surgeon admits to branding initials on patients' livers

#46

Post by Ultimatt »

TrinTragula wrote: post #30
JSONwebtoken wrote: post #16

Honestly if he had asked for my consent, I might have thought about letting him brand my organ, it's not like anyone will see it or care. It might mean he takes more pride in his work and thus do a better job. I understand a professional wanting to "sign off" on their work; programmers, scientists, artists, engineers and so forth really like putting their name on things so why not doctors? If he were forthcoming mayb…

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 consent is what's properly bad, tangibly more than the physical result of his breach of ethics.

Re: Surgeon admits to branding initials on patients' livers

#47

Post by confiscate »

JSONwebtoken wrote: post #16

Honestly if he had asked for my consent, I might have thought about letting him brand my organ, it's not like anyone will see it or care. It might mean he takes more pride in his work and thus do a better job. I understand a professional wanting to "sign off" on their work; programmers, scientists, artists, engineers and so forth really like putting their name on things so why not doctors? If he were forthcoming mayb…

An engineer signing on her work, is different from a doctor signing on a human organ.

One is signing on a piece of object, and one is signing on a live human being. An object and a human being are hugely different things.

That would be like saying, well I can write my name on my own piece of paper, why can't I tattoo my name on your back? No one can see it.

Also, one is a "creation", and one is just "fixing". An engineer signing a circuit board that she created, is very different from a doctor signing on a person that she did not create.

Re: Surgeon admits to branding initials on patients' livers

#48

Post by thaumasiotes »

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…

> Whatever the man did, what he didn't do was kill anyone or permanently curtail someone's professional life or put someone in a cell for days/months/years.

I don't have much of a problem with very severe punishments for things that (1) the person knew they weren't supposed to do; and (2) can't be done by accident.

> her point was there should be a type of punishment that is the equivalent of society yelling a whole bunch at you very very sternly and making you feel very very embarrassed and then you moving on with your life and continuing to contribute to society

This sounds more like the stocks than a public spanking (spanking?).

A public shaming works better when everyone agrees on what's shameful. As soon as you have groups who honor getting thrown in the stocks, a lot of the point of throwing people in the stocks disappears.

Re: Surgeon admits to branding initials on patients' livers

#49

Post by chesimov »

c3534l wrote: post #39
simplyfantast wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

Re: Surgeon admits to branding initials on patients' livers

#50

Post by hycaria »

King-Aaron wrote: post #10
Johnny555 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that depends on your definition of "harmed". If I used a laser to burn my initials into your underarm in a place that no one would ever see it.... would you say that I harmed you? 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?

> 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

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