A surgeon has admitted to branding the livers of two patients using a beam of ionized argon gas:
Bramhall previously worked at Birmingham's Queen Elizabeth hospital, where he gained fame for a dramatic liver transplant in 2010. Bramhall transplanted a liver following the fiery crash-landing of the plane that was transporting the donor liver to Birmingham. Though the pilots were injured, the liver was intact and salvaged from the burning wreckage. The transplant spared the life of Dr. Bramhall's desperately ill patient.
But in 2013, colleagues discovered that he had been initialing his patients' organs. Doctors first spotted the letters "SB" on the liver of one of Bramhall's transplant patients during a follow-up surgery. They later learned of initials on another patient. Bramhall was suspended in 2013 and resigned in 2014 amid an internal investigation into the etchings. Earlier this year, the General Medical Council issued Bramhall a formal warning, saying at the time that Bramhall's case "risks bringing the profession into disrepute, and it must not be repeated."
Bramhall etched his initials using an argon beam—a jet of ionized argon gas—which surgeons use to control bleeding during procedures. Doctors who are part of the investigation don't think the marks are harmful and expect them to clear up on their own.
Also at BBC and The Guardian.
Related Stories
The surgeon who admitted to burning his initials into the livers of two patients has been sentenced:
A surgeon who burned his initials on to the livers of two patients during transplant surgery has been given a 12-month community order and fined £10,000.
Simon Bramhall, 53, used an argon beam – used to stop livers bleeding during operations and to highlight an area to be worked on – to sign "SB" into his patient's livers. The marks left by argon do not impair the liver's function and disappear by themselves.
In December, the liver, spleen and pancreas surgeon admitted two counts of assault by beating. The offences relate to the incidents on 9 February and 21 August 2013. Prosecutors accepted his not guilty pleas to the more serious charges of assault occasioning actual bodily harm.
[...] Bramhall tendered his resignation the following summer amid an internal disciplinary investigation into his conduct. Speaking to the press at the time, he said marking his initials on to his patients' livers had been a mistake. He now works for the NHS in Herefordshire.
More like assault by beaming.
Also at NPR.
Previously: Surgeon Branded Initials Into Patients' Livers With Argon Beam
(Score: -1, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Thursday December 14 2017, @01:03AM (10 children)
Well, how the hell did he get away with it at all? You'd think that the OR, especially one in which a transplant was occurring, was fully staffed. Were they all in on the joke, or was he just slick about it?
Anyway, such an act is more something a Mexican would do, as they feel the need to write their name with spray-paint on every wall and dumpster they run across. Must be some kind of overcompensating for not getting gold stars because they couldn't write their name in kindergarten -- like the clockwork backstory of a super-villain.
(Score: 0, Redundant) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Thursday December 14 2017, @01:08AM (8 children)
I was first to moderate your post as -1, Troll.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 14 2017, @02:55AM (2 children)
What a waste of moderation and a comment, Crawford.
All that just to feel proud of yourself. Jesus, if you don't care for the comment, just let it be.
(Score: 1, Redundant) by Ethanol-fueled on Thursday December 14 2017, @03:40AM
I don't think so. The beauty of this place is that we can mod each other down and not get banned for it.
(Score: 2) by etherscythe on Thursday December 14 2017, @10:29PM
Whoosh!
Think about it.
"Fake News: anything reported outside of my own personally chosen echo chamber"
(Score: -1) by fakefuck39 on Thursday December 14 2017, @02:03PM (4 children)
and moderation does what exactly? I have this theory. put a spinning wheel in a hamster cage and the dumb rat will run in it. give a dumb annoying baby a noise maker and it'll stop crying. give some millennial social rejects a button to click that makes their opinion show up on a website and their ugly zit face will talk to you less. is that last one it? or you got something else in mind? most users have scores and moderation disabled - it takes up useless space. so you're making the text "troll" show up next to someone's label. good job - time to run in your wheel. oh, you think it hides someone's comment? do you actually think there is a single person here who wants their content filtered by random internet losers like you and does not read at -1? now go on, tell me about my grammer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 14 2017, @04:50PM (3 children)
Oh really? Tell me more, random pissed-off guy on the Internet with a rude username.
Yes? Probably most of them.
If you insist.
(Score: -1) by fakefuck39 on Friday December 15 2017, @03:51AM (2 children)
your the people that moderation button was created for. you're also the people I put in random grammer errors for. keep pushing that button, keep correcting 3rd grade spelling errors, keep running in that hampster wheel. you are my personal clown. thanks for the entertainment - you'll never climb above the level your at, and just like the janitor, you are needed in our society. just not at the top or anywhere that matters.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 15 2017, @03:30PM (1 child)
I like the part where you're already posting at -1 so there's no point in even modding you down. It's like self-censorship!
(Score: -1) by fakefuck39 on Monday December 18 2017, @05:15PM
I love how a guy replying to a -1 post keeps claiming people don't read at -1. I bet you somehow convinced yourself you're good looking and social and popular too. Let's add successful to that list.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 14 2017, @03:06AM
Orange Alert! Your stupidity level approaches that of Trump's.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Thursday December 14 2017, @01:07AM (10 children)
Get tested for bone marrow transplant. This is vital if you are an ethnic minority, as donors of other races are less likely to be compatible with a minority recipient.
Many jurisdictions permit live donations of kidneys - you only _need_ one you know - and liver lobes. Your liver will continue to function if just one of its lobes is removed.
Tim Cook got his liver tested, which found that he was compatible with Steve Jobs. Jobs could have been spared but he declined Cook's incredibly generous offer.
However:
I looked into live kidney donation a couple years ago, but was told that donations must come from people who are under fifty years old.
I know a little girl who had both her kidneys removed when she was less than a week old due to Recessive Polycystic Kidney Disease. She got her kidney when she was 3 1/2. She'd be about nine now.
Dialysis sounds like a much better idea than it really is. You need a real kidney. Had Ailes not received that donation she'd be dead by now.
(Ailes is French for "wings" as in "angel wings".)
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 3, Funny) by Snotnose on Thursday December 14 2017, @02:01AM (8 children)
[quote]Get tested for bone marrow transplant.[/quote]
I did, some 30-40 years ago. Don't remember the deets but some kid got me to get tested. Turns out I had some rare disease as a kid that showed in in the blood tests that said not only can I not donate bone marrow, I can't donate blood. Can't say I'm pissed, I hate needles. But it's been 40 years, I keep thinking I should get retested. Then I remember I really hate needes.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Thursday December 14 2017, @02:03AM
Not if they ate beef while they were traveling in Great Britain.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Thursday December 14 2017, @02:03AM (5 children)
Oops, was still fucking with variations of ,
, [quote], [/quote], you get the idea.
Why does every website have different ways of, hell, choosing vs [? Not kidding, I frequently post on 3 websites and all 3 have different variations?
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 2) by coolgopher on Thursday December 14 2017, @03:52AM (1 child)
Aye, same with links. Is it <a href="http://somesite.example.com">linky</a>, [url=somesite.example.com]linky[/url], [linky](somesite.example.com), or maybe [somesite.example.com][linky]?
For the block quotes, leading a line with a > would be a nice and convenient extension though.
Of course, https://xkcd.com/927/ [xkcd.com] comes to mind...
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday December 14 2017, @04:00AM
Maybe I could add a check to my extension that automatically converts BBCode to HTML.
But wait, if you use my extension, you have buttons for all of these things that should be faster to use than typing it.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 14 2017, @11:21AM (2 children)
What is used here is just plain HTML tags, the very same that end up being served to your browser (well, except for some additions; e.g. to the best of my knowledge HTML doesn't know the sarcasm tag). Why other sites had to invent that [] syntax when the <> syntax was around since the web itself was is beyond me.
(Score: 2) by FakeBeldin on Thursday December 14 2017, @08:14PM (1 child)
As far as I know, it was from a security point of view. No HTML tags allowed is trivial to check (and scrub). Then the site itself would offer a limited conversion from the allowed [...] tags to HTML. Since this is far more limited, and you create everything you allow, there's a smaller chance of messing it up.
Case in point: the edit wars a spammer and NCommander engaged in, where the spammer kept trying to poke holes and NCommander kept trying to plug them. Haven't seen that for a while, either they got bored or NCommander emerged victoriously (for now).
(Score: 3, Insightful) by maxwell demon on Thursday December 14 2017, @11:09PM
While it is clearly not the algorithm done by this site, it is just as easy to safely support HTML tags:
As an additional bonus, when doing it that way, things that happen to look like HTML tags but aren't will generally be preserved in the output. So if you type "a < 1 || a > 3" then it will appear exactly like that in the output, instead of removing the "tag" and ending up with "a 3" (this is how I can know that this algorithm is not used by SN).
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 14 2017, @04:07AM
Personally, I don't want to get tested for anything. The main problem in getting tested is the generation of data, which MUST be shared with people who demand answers to questions in order to receive any sort of medical care or apply for insurance.
If I do not know, I can truthfully answer NO to most of those "Have you ever had ?" on their forms.
If you have ever been to a hospital, you know exactly what forms I am talking about. Although they may say reassuring words like "HIPAA", its just about as secure as Experian. Business-level security protected by "hold harmless" clauses.
Now, those cooings of "Just answer three simple health questions" are now the excuse insurance companies have to collect my premiums for years, but deny me the benefit of insurance when the need comes, leaving my loved ones to fight for any insurance benefit I may receive.
After I am dead.
I am required to answer these questions as a condition of applying for insurance. The more I know, the bigger disadvantage I have if the insurance company can prove I knew. Like if I go for these "health scan" services, and I receive a report saying I may be susceptible for cancer or have abnormal blood pressure, now the insurance company can lay low, collect my premiums until I die, then use that report as an excuse to disqualify my beneficiaries.
I have no idea of how much info people have on me, but I get the idea it is quite extensive - and WILL be used to deny claims. That's why insurance companies are so big and have so much money to relentlessly advertise and build and staff all those huge buildings. They coo all sorts of "feel good about protecting your family" crap while I am alive - as when I am dead, I will never discover if my loved ones ever even got the benefit, knowing I had to fill in "three simple health questions", any one of which they may have other data for, and leave my loved ones trying to prove it one way or the other, against corporate databases.
If you don't want "your loved ones paying your debt", don't run up a lot of debt... and open a savings account or other investment strategy.
I'd rather leave my stuff for my own family, not contribute to some manipulator's huge buildings, and salary.
(Score: 1) by shrewdsheep on Thursday December 14 2017, @10:24AM
You do not have to get tested. You do not have to spare a kidney nor a liver lobe. Just become a donor. If everyone were to be an organd donor upon exitus, we could all have three kidneys and two livers.
Bone marrow transplants are a different though and testing would help. I am personally an organ donor but not a bone marrow donor.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Snotnose on Thursday December 14 2017, @01:07AM (11 children)
This reminds me of the gun that cop used to execute a drunk dude in Az. His receiver was etched with "You're fucked". How the jury let that asshat off I'll never understand, but watching that video scares the fuck out of me. How many of you haven't been drunk in a hotel room on a business trip? How many of you had guns on your person? Yeah, I thought so.
At least this doc was saving lives, instead of taking them. But jeez, that video of the hotel execution will live with me for the rest of my life whenever I have to deal with a cop.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by sgleysti on Thursday December 14 2017, @01:39AM (9 children)
Curious about the story you mentioned so I dug up a link https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2017/12/arizona-police-officer-acquitted-in-the-shooting-of-daniel-shaver.html [slate.com]
Insane. The guy yelling in the video is the police sergeant, a different person from the officer who fired.
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Thursday December 14 2017, @01:55AM (8 children)
Really? First I've heard of this. Still, the executioner was responsible for watching the hotel doorsay. He shifted his aim to execute the poor rat executioner guy.
That whole video is a 5 minute sequence of fucked up. If that's the way they are trained then we are all in danger of our lives if we ever meet a cop in a non 75 in a 65 zone, and even then I give it a 50/50.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 2) by legont on Thursday December 14 2017, @02:13AM (7 children)
It was an air gun - pellets. He hunted birds inside Wallmart stores for living. He had a bag with two air rifles and a dead sparrow to brag about. Somebody saw him through 5th floor window and called.
The police "officer" was a young son of a 20 years on the job decorated detective. He was looking for a quick way to impress dad and everybody, I guess. Psycho he really is.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Thursday December 14 2017, @02:20AM (6 children)
I fail to see your point. He didn't have the air gun on him. He was begging for his life. Today was the first I heard the executioner wasn't the guy calling the shots.
IMHO, both the executioner and the shot caller should be in prison for more than a handful of years now. And the city should be sues for several decimal points if that is indeed the way they train their cops.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 14 2017, @03:18AM (2 children)
It's all about what the cops think they can get away with / what will happen to them if they machine gun a citizen. Each acquittal and weak prosecution will get them to push their limits further. There's already a shift from blowing away the poor, black, and hispanic to taking on targets from the middle class. If unchecked, eventually it will be judges, politicians, and prosecutors.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday December 14 2017, @05:08AM (1 child)
And that's why we're hearing about it now. It's taken white folks starting to suffer what every black man could have told you about 20, 40, 70, 100 years ago for this to reach the national conscience.
The longer I live the more I hate humanity in general.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 14 2017, @05:35AM
Except white men have also been regularly shot, if they were of the underclass, that is thought not to have family that can afford to or wants to press charges. Thexalon put it well in this posting [soylentnews.org].
(Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Thursday December 14 2017, @05:14AM (1 child)
You could hear it the murderers voice. He had a rage boner at the thought of getting to kill someone. He desperately wanted to kill that guy.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 15 2017, @10:40AM
Yes, you. Idiot. The murderer didn't say a word.
(Score: 2) by legont on Friday December 15 2017, @06:58PM
My point? He never was any danger and should not be harassed by police to begin with. It should be perfectly safe for anybody including children to play around with a pellet gun as it always was in the US just a few years back. I, for example, gave a 13 years old boy a birthday gift - pellet rifle - in Brooklyn in 1993.The level of paranoia in the modern US society is beyond comprehension. It's not going to end well.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday December 14 2017, @09:35PM
Here's a novel thought. Don't get drunk and shoot things from your hotel room. "Brailsford was one of six officers called to a Mesa motel on January 18, 2016, after someone reported seeing the barrel of a rifle sticking out of a window." http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/arizona-police-officer-philip-brailsford-found-not-guilty-in-motel-suspect-shooting-9930923 [phoenixnewtimes.com] Officers are trained to "shoot to kill". Hollywood Movie cops shoot suspects in the leg, shoulder, or what not. That's not what they do in real life.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 5, Funny) by Arik on Thursday December 14 2017, @01:08AM (3 children)
I hope he gets another job quickly and without any cut in pay.
If I ever need a surgeon, I want that guy.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 14 2017, @01:58AM
There's probably uglier and unhealthier scarring on the livers of Ethanol Fueled and others ;-)
There really is no medical risk from those initials. Livers will work fine with such scars. And they're not visible externally.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Thursday December 14 2017, @07:15AM
The pride in workmanship for an American Doctor is supposed to be in the size of the bill, isn't it?
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2) by Bot on Thursday December 14 2017, @12:35PM
Yeah indeed, it is an innocent enough joke.
Just make him pay for the wasted argon, and tattoo "I AM AN IDIOT" on his forehead and let him back to work. Sheesh.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 14 2017, @01:27AM
This doctor's unprofessional behavior doesn't surprise me.
Every doctor I've interacted with (except for perhaps one who was not acting as a doctor at the time) in a business relationship has been a lying, gaslighting asshole. I have two death threats against me from doctors during my time working at one of their answering services.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 14 2017, @01:27AM (5 children)
I've had a chance to work with a few surgeons on non-medical issues (like re-zoning in our neighborhood). With few exceptions, they are insufferable people to deal with, completely full of themselves and unwilling to believe that anyone else might have something useful to say or contribute.
As I got older, I realized that maybe this was part of the job description. After all, to cut into a living person (and not just injure them) must take tremendous self-confidence. Would you put yourself in the care of a surgeon that wasn't completely confident in their ability?
The problems comes with lack of socialization, the surgeons (mostly?) were never trained to leave that huge ego at the door of the operating room when they exit out into general society.
I see this branding episode as just another symptom of a highly inflated sense of self-worth.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday December 14 2017, @01:58AM (3 children)
Maybe the robotic [ieee.org] surgeon [wikipedia.org] operators will have smaller egos.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday December 14 2017, @02:09AM
I'm sure those small egos can be fixed.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Bot on Thursday December 14 2017, @12:36PM
HA, YOU WISH.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 14 2017, @02:07PM
Sure, they would have to pay for the Large Ego package otherwise.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 14 2017, @11:30AM
Would you put yourself in the care of a surgeon that wasn't completely aware of their limits?
(Score: 2) by crafoo on Thursday December 14 2017, @01:35AM (1 child)
Surgeons are cocky assholes. But it's probably alright. You don't want your hands in the life of a meek, squirmy, second and third guessing people pleaser.
What this guy did was in bad taste. It doesn't sound like it's a permanent mark, and even if it was, had no real effect on organ function.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 14 2017, @04:27AM
Well, speaking from the Engineering side, I have worked with some pretty good engineers - as far as technical stuff went. They weren't "people pleasers", rather their main concern was perfection. Generally, the "leadership" types seemed to hate them, and spent a lot of time trying to figure how to get these people removed from the company, despite the fact their stuff worked.
It was usually pretty easy to get rid of them though... just set them up to insubordinate. Many executives consider the skill to lay off more important than the skills to build something.
Then I have seen the "people pleaser" types. They shot right up the ranks. Sharp dressers. Hand-Shakers. Party-Boys. Technology was not their forte. For them, they tolerated tech-talk as a vehicle to get them what they really wanted: money, prestige, power. And they sure seemed threatened by those who did the engineering because they had a love for it.
Once the company's founder had sold the company off, and the suit-guys were in charge, our engineering department became a clusterfuck. Everyone was looking good, nobody was doing anything. There weren't any minions around anymore to actually design anything. All we could do is sign paperwork prepared for our signatures.
If I had to go under the knife, I sure would want someone of the mental framework as those crusty old engineers who insisted the job be done right, despite what the paper-pushers had to say. It wasn't very easy to find those kind of people long time ago, and I believe its even harder to find them today, given the social pressure of being a people pleaser to get anywhere today.
(Score: 2) by Virindi on Thursday December 14 2017, @02:30AM (2 children)
We have a word for this: "battery". What the doctor did was a crime. He should be prosecuted, not just given some administrative penalty.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 14 2017, @04:50AM
Does the patient have anything to say about this crime you speak of (battery)? If this surgeon just saved my life (or greatly improved my quality of life), then I wouldn't really care if he tagged the new liver--I would be grateful to him.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 14 2017, @11:32AM
You mean, the liver could be used for storing electricity afterwards? :-)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 14 2017, @04:48AM (4 children)
To my brother's car with some sort of sharp implement (we don't give him argon beam guns) when he was nine.
I mean he wrote his name. It's not like folks wouldn't know who did it.
And, AFAICT, my nephew got in more trouble for that than this surgeon did.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 14 2017, @04:56AM (3 children)
Bad car analogy! It takes work (or money) to repair automotive paint. The little initials that the surgeon left behind will disappear in time, and have no effect on liver function.
I would hope that surgeons would get into a lot more trouble if they left a sponge or tool in the patient--something that will cause future problems.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Thursday December 14 2017, @07:18AM
But proving who left the sponge, knife, or whatever is hard.
This was easy!
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DECbot on Thursday December 14 2017, @05:22PM (1 child)
So, you're saying that this is more like the mechanic drawing a penis in the condensation on a car's windshield. No lasting or permanent damage, but annoying as fuck to the driver and completely unprofessional.
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday December 14 2017, @09:44PM
More like a Tattoo Artist using a permanent marker to initial your thigh. Won't generally be noticed and will eventually wear off, but kinda messed up.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 3, Funny) by Kilo110 on Thursday December 14 2017, @05:52AM (2 children)
http://pbfcomics.com/comics/transfer-patient/ [pbfcomics.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 14 2017, @11:34AM (1 child)
Wasn't that very link already in the summary?
(Score: 2) by Kilo110 on Thursday December 14 2017, @02:43PM
Hah, I didn't notice that link. But yes, same one.
(Score: 1, Troll) by realDonaldTrump on Thursday December 14 2017, @07:33AM
Show me someone without an ego, and I'll show you a LOSER. Having a healthy ego, or high opinion of yourself, is a real positive in life!
If you don’t tell people about your success, they probably won’t know about it. You put your name out there, in the public eye. On someone's liver, on top of your buildings, or on your Signature Collection. trump.com/merchandise/signature-collection [trump.com]
Because I’ve been successful, make money, get headlines, and have authored bestselling books, I have a better chance to make my ideas public than do people who are less well known. Until I went into politics, I was just a fucking businessman. Certainly a businessperson on television has never had anything close to this success. It’s like being a rock star. I’ve also been in the public eye long enough so that the pendulum has swung, and many of the same media people who once put me on a pedestal now can’t wait for me to fall off. People like a hero, a Golden Boy, but many like a fallen hero even better. That was a fact of life long before I came along, and I can handle it. I know that, whatever happens, I’m a survivor -- a survivor of success, which is a very rare thing indeed.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 14 2017, @11:26AM
this is (monkey) business as usual.