Or perhaps doctors shouldn’t be branding their patients’ internal organs

[Zarathrustra]

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/dec/15/doctor-signed-patients-livers-law-courts

It had to be done anyway and he didn’t do the op badly, it’s just the pattern he used that’s the problem. I realise a lot do see it as outrageous and you can’t understand why anyone would disagree but don’t look for explanations that aren’t there

It's just the pattern he used that's the problem?

Did he carve his initials in your frontal lobe perchance, because that's one hell of a moronic explanation . He had to perform the operation therefore it's all a big lol that he carved his initials onto a person's liver at the same time.

Fucking hell the world really is full of morons.

'lol'

"You may well wonder why the second surgeon felt obliged to report his discovery to the hospital authorities, as knowledge of the signature was the only thing that might conceivably distress the patient"

Appalling. Yeah, lets not tell the patient what's happened to their body while anaesthetised - what they don't know won't hurt them

This guy has serious issues. This sets an important precedent.

It isn't "detachment" though, is it? Detachment would be, on completion of a good job, sewing them up again tidily and never seeing or thinking of them again. By signing his name on his unconscious patient's vital organs he is hugely personalising the business. It's almost the polar opposite of detaching.

Also, as someone upthread mentioned, there must be some small element or at least risk of damage to the liver in making unnecessary marks on it. Rule No 1 of the Hippocratic Oath, isn't it?

Ach, somehow missed a whole page of responses including detailed ones on the potential damage thing. What they said, basically.

BlazingPaddles My understanding is the liver had to be branded so there would be marks anyway. What is in question is the pattern of the marks. Is that incorrect?

The liver is often routinely branded during these operations, SB used his initials instead of any other pattern. That’s the reason other theatre staff wouldn’t have thought much of it. The colleague that blew the whistle had (according to medical grapevine) a grudge against SB.
He is still working because he’s an excellent surgeon with vast experience that the NHS can’t afford to lose.

I find it very disturbing
I certainly don't find it funny

Well that's an interesting fact missy and answers the question about why the original set of theatre staff didn't report it. It also makes the assault charge seem over the top (and I was in favour of the charge). I wonder why that's not being reported?

I've had 7 surgeries under GA. Personally I find it extremely difficult to put myself in a position where I am unconscious and naked in a room full of strangers, who could do literally anything they choose to me and I would have no idea about it. That's a terrifying prospect for me. The one reason I can go through with it each time is that all of those involved are held to very high professional standards, and one would hope that they would not dare to act inappropriately in front of other professionals.

For me, this is the issue here. Aside from the utter narcissism of doing this to someone's body (isn't it enough that you can save a life, why the need for this additional power trip?), my main issue is the fact that some professionals are doing completely unnecessary things to someone's body while they're unconscious, and not a single member of staff in attendance spoke out about it. This gives people like this confidence to continue and perhaps escalate such behaviour. When you have surgery you consent to very specific things only, and perhaps agree to other things potentially being done if it's necessary to save your life which under anaesthetic. Surgeons should not be doing ANYTHING whatsoever to which the patient has not consented otherwise where does it end? This needs to be acted on strongly and decisively.

Gosh, Missy, that's interesting.....

pengggwn The branding is made by argon beam which is a type of gas used to prevent bleeding, the reason is to highlight a specific area on the liver. Obviously it depends on the exact circumstances of each operation as whether this is needed or not, but it’s certainly not out of the ordinary.

Perhaps if he had drawn a star or pretty flower it would have been ok?

He11y Indeed. I don't have any problem agreeing to differ. I didn't like the 'no biggie' and the attempt to belittle this with the there are 'worse things going on in the world' trope. It doesn't illustrate the point, it's conflating two things not even similar. I know a lot of posters do that but it's distracting and unnecessary.

As there's an update from missy, perhaps we'll find out whether it was necessary or not but I can't see that this would have gone to Court and the surgeon 'resigned' for something that was permissible and apparently even routine. That doesn't make sense.

MissyB1... then why did he resign? Why did it go to Court?

I'm not a medical expert, but I suspect the branding missyb1 is describing is a "necessary" part of surgery. Which is somewhat different to the branding this surgeon was doing aka "unnecessary" part of surgery.

Don't forget in order to get to criminal court, this case will have been reviewed by a panel of his peers and medical experts in order to conclude that this surgeons actions have been unethical and an abuse of his position.

I'm quite saddened by some of the comments in this thread.

To be fair, it has been pretty widely reported that the 'branding' itself is fairly routine, but I think most people have gone straight to full-on outrage without reading any of those reports.

My understanding was that he resigned because of the immense stress and upset caused by the allegations and investigation at work, some people were happy to kick a man who was down. I imagine he practically had a breakdown. I can't say for certain but from what I heard a lot of it was longstanding hospital politics
He is sorely missed though.

I've no idea why it went to court, a sign of the times maybe? I dont understand why branding his initials was assault but any other pattern would (and is) considered acceptable. Another complication of this story is that branding is often not permanent, the liver heals and it disappears, in this case because the liver was already damaged (nothing to do with SB) the branding didn't disappear.

@missy is quite right in what she says.

SB is an extremely talented transplant surgeon and his colleagues and department are guilty of petty jealousy and rivalry and that is the only reason he was reported, which is pathetic. Yes he was arrogant to sign his initials instead of any other pattern but seriously, assault by beating? I understand this is so unusual it would be difficult to fit into a known bracket but I don't think a criminal conviction actually is the right thing here.

Also all this nonsense about surgeons all being arrogant is rubbish. DH is a surgeon and a lovely caring man, and all of his colleagues are the same. It is no longer the 1960's so get yourselves up to date with modern medicine.

penggggwn that would be impossible without access to the patient's medical notes. I've no idea if that came out in the trial or not, I haven't seen it reported.

Its worth noting that the GMC gave SB a warning as they felt his action may have brought the medical profession into disrepute, but they did not place any restrictions on his practice - in other words they consider him a safe and competent surgeon.