8 ms·
Surgeon admits to branding initials on patients' livers
- orliesaurus 9y agoLuckily no one was harmed.
- dotancohen 9y agoThere was no danger of harm. In fact, though this was a stupid decision by the surgeon, I'm of the opinion that he should not be removed from his post. He was proud of his handiwork and signed off on it. Have we enough skilled surgeons to remove them for a harmless boast? Reprimanded, sure, but removing him from his post is both an over reaction and unfair to society which is already lacking in skilled healthcare professionals.
- y7 9y agoHe is not just a mechanic operating on inanimate objects, his "handiwork" was the insides of a person. Letting vanity get to your head and signing your initials inside of them is a gross violation of the autonomy of that person -- they never consented to such a thing.
- WillReplyfFood 9y agoThe insides of a person loose a lot of there holyness and gloriousness, that law ascribes to the object, when you have it in your hands every day- and if the plumbing doesent work out close the lid on some meatsack with sticks in it.
- btian 9y agoIf he wants to leave handiwork he should be an artist or something. Don't be a surgeon.
- rdiddly 9y agoApparently there are enough surgeons that this guy has plenty of time for extracurricular activities inside an open incision.
- pgsandstrom 9y agoHis "stupid decision" shows a complete lack of judgement. I would never trust anyone with my life if they are capable of doing something as absurd as this.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- Siemer 9y agoI would, especially if I was on a waiting list. A punishment that does not remove him from his job would benefit everyone in this case.
- askvictor 9y agoPeople who are specialists in one thing might make terrible judgements in other things. Your excellent judgement in designing software doesn't make you an excellent driver.
- khedoros1 9y agoWhen my bad judgment as a driver impacts my decisions as a programmer too, I don't expect that to slide. If his ego/vanity changes the actions that he takes when performing surgery, that sounds like a problem to me.
- ramblerman 9y agoExcept this isn't how we make decisions in our society. What if he hits a kid with his car, should we let him off the hook there too because 'he is needed by society'
- drops 9y agoYou're comparing a victimless "crime" with injuring someone. That doesn't make any sense.
- ramblerman 9y agoIf 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?
- DanBC 9y agoThat'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.
- ramblerman 9y agoSo 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?
- benchaney 9y agoYou think branding people is a victimless crime?
- overlordalex 9y agoAlthough, this does happen[1]: > Oxford student given suspended sentence for stabbing boyfriend > Judge had reportedly earlier told Lavinia Woodward a prison term could damage her prospects of becoming a heart surgeon [1] https://www.theguardian.com/law/2017/sep/25/oxford-student-lavinia-woodward-gets-suspended-sentence-for-stabbing-boyfriend https://www.theguardian.com/law/2017/sep/25/oxford-student-l...
- lokimedes 9y agoThe guy should lose his authorization for this. It is part of a bad culture among medical doctors, where they both torture themselves and apparently others as well. The profession as a whole should really wake up or they will face a similar reaction as taxi drivers did with the introduction of Uber and Lyft. Nobody want’s to be forced to be a customer in businesses that supersede customer trust for ego.
- Johnny555 9y agoI 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?
- orliesaurus 9y agoI got laser surgery done and that left a big scar on my neck, can confirm 10 years later I'm still functioning properly. Now the liver is different but from reading the article it seems this was just a stupid non-life-threatening decision taken by a surgeon who thought he was painting on canvas
- Johnny555 9y agoYes, but my question wasn't "What if you had an unavoidable scar from laser surgery", my question was "would you feel harmed if I burnt my initials into some not-normally visible part of your skin" for no other reason than to say that I was there? Even minor scarring adds to the bodies burden in healing, so I think it's hard to definitively say that the laser inscribed initials did not cause any harm or increased risk at all. After all, these were not strong, healthy people -- they were sick enough to require liver surgery... and one of them had to have followup treatment which is when the initials were discovered.
- King-Aaron 9y ago> 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... Though by the time you're having an intraoperative procedure done on your liver, you're already not free from complications.
- 9y ago
- twiss 9y agoRelated sketch, "surgeon pranks": https://youtu.be/MR76R4gaC48 https://youtu.be/MR76R4gaC48. Doesn't seem as absurd now.
- JSONwebtoken 9y agoHonestly 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 maybe only 10% of patients might agree to it, but that should probably be enough to scratch some egotistic itch.
- TrinTragula 9y agoI 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.
- dEnigma 9y agoJust for your information, and I'm not trying to be mean here: You probably meant "fathom", not "phantom".
- TrinTragula 9y agoThanks, english is not my first language, if that's an excuse. I try!
- Ultimatt 9y agoI 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.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- mpnagle 9y agohttp://pbfcomics.com/comics/transfer-patient/ http://pbfcomics.com/comics/transfer-patient/
- dvt 9y agoThe 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 fit the crime? Considering he was a leading surgeon in his field, I honestly don't know. One would have to consider potential future lives saved compared to these ethical breaches. It's a tough call, for sure, but to exonerate him or, worse, downplay these egregious violations as "victimless crimes" is, to me, unfathomable.
- andrewstuart 9y agoThis is why there's so many ethical issues coming to the forefront these days ... people grade things into "acceptable" levels of bad behaviour.
- Fnoord 9y agoI 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.
- simplyfantast 9y agoI'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 demands termination.
- bikitan 9y agoEvokes a certain PBF comic: http://pbfcomics.com/comics/transfer-patient/ http://pbfcomics.com/comics/transfer-patient/
- ggg9990 9y agoCan'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?
- kaffeemitsahne 9y agoWell, then what?
- ggg9990 9y agoWould you fire her?
- synicalx 9y agoI 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.
- ggreer 9y agoThis isn't the first time I've heard of such a thing. From When the Air Hits Your Brain: Tales from Neurosurgery by Frank Vertosick Jr: > “He’s a big fan of yours, too, pal, ever since the bone flap thing.” The bone flap incident had occurred early in Gary’s chief year. Fred and Gary were performing a cranial operation to remove a benign brain tumor. Fred had performed the entire operation himself—a grave insult to a chief resident, known as “stealing the case.” After Fred left the OR, further irritating the chief by dumping upon him the tedium of closing the wound, an angry Gary had engraved the phrase “Fred sucks” with the electrocautery knife on the inside of the bone flap, the plate of skull bone that is temporarily sawed away to gain access to the brain. He had then wired the flap back into place, thinking that the inside of the patient’s skull would never again see the light of day. Unfortunately, the bone flap developed a staph infection and had to be removed a week later. Once contaminated with bacteria, the free piece of skull must be removed to cure the infection. The soft spot is filled in with plastic several months later. Gary coerced me into assisting Fred with the surgical removal of the infected flap. I’ll never forget the almost unintelligible stream of invectives that spewed forth when Fred saw Gary’s skull graffitti. Fred was too embarrassed to send the discarded flap to the pathology department as it was, and we spent an hour drilling the message off the bone before allowing it to leave the OR. Considering the type of personality that surgery attracts, I see why this happens. That said, I don't think this is a common occurrence. (And it should go without saying, but such actions are unethical, unprofessional, and worthy of criminal charges.)
- dvt 9y agoGreat passage, thanks for sharing. It's a bit unnerving that this kind of thing may not be as rare as it might seem (engraving bones during a brain surgery of all things).
- dEnigma 9y agoThe branding itself is bad enough --to put another burden on the system of patients who are already in a bad enough state to need a transplant is just cruel-- but this also means that he prolonged the operation just to satisfy his vanity, possibly risking further complications, and wasting time that could benefit other patients.
- whiddershins 9y agoArgh 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.
- dEnigma 9y agoNo 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).
- thaumasiotes 9y ago> 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.
- aaron695 9y agoPeople die because we don't have enough surgeons. Seems people vote for revenge over innoccent lives.
- KiDD 9y agoIf I ever get surgery again I will be sure to give the surgeon permission to leave his mark! Just don't kill me bro...