Recent news about Ian Paterson being under further investigation got me thinking about an episode buried deep in my past.
In 1981, I was doing my year abroad for a language degree. On one of my visits home to the UK, I saw the GP about a tiny lump on the skin of my breast - I think it was a wart.
Because of its location, he said to be on the safe side a biopsy would be advisable. Just a tiny nick in the flesh and a stitch.
I attended a hospital in Birmingham and the very young surgeon came round to meet his patients. For some reason we were all sitting in curtained-off cubicles. Just before he got to me, I heard him say to the woman he was assessing, "You're going to look like a butcher's shop by the time I've finished with you."
He was nonchalant with me and although the op was done under local anaesthetic, he covered my face, which felt oddly dehumanising. He was making weird jokes with the nurses throughout the procedure.
There was a dressing over the wound that they told me not to remove for a week. By then I was abroad again. When I removed the dressing, there were three gashes across my breast, ranging from an inch to about three inches. The top one in particular had been sewn so badly that the stitches had come loose, leaving a gaping wound that took a long time to heal and scarred badly.
There was no pathology report, as the specimen never reached the lab.
A few years later I managed to get scar revision surgery (referred by my GP, who said I'd been mutilated), but I often wondered what on earth that surgeon did to the woman who he'd promised to "butcher."
When I first read the news about Ian Paterson, I thought surely it must have been him. The location, the specialty, the cruel and dismissive remarks, the clumsy and unnecessary cuts. But I think he would have been too young at the time (he's 63 now). Which only makes me wonder if there was a whole network of nutters wielding scalpels around the Midlands?!
YABU - Just a bad day for that surgeon, normally caring and competent
YANBU - Mavericks once ruled surgical care, and some of them were bonkers
Not sure what the point of this post is really, except to have a bit of a moan and say I really hope standards of care have improved over the decades.