The doctor who signed patients’ livers was silly, not criminal. The law is an ass | Henry Marsh

Surgeons like me walk a tightrope between compassion and detachment. Recklessly threatening them with the courts does more harm than good

• Henry Marsh is a neurosurgeon and author of Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death and Brain Surgery

Last Wednesday Simon Bramhall, a consultant surgeon specialising in liver transplantation, pleaded guilty in Birmingham crown court to “assault by beating”. He awaits sentencing. On two occasions during liver transplantation surgery – a highly complex and difficult procedure – he had signed his initials on the surface of his patients’ organs using an argon gas coagulator. If I understand the details of the case correctly, there is no suggestion that marking the liver in this way caused any damage to its function, so the effect was – so to speak – purely artistic.

Related: Surgeon admits marking his initials on the livers of two patients

All surgeons have skeletons in their cupboards of one sort or another, and we are often loath to denounce our colleagues

Related: In cynical times two paramedics have shown the power of our shared humanity | Ranjana Srivastava

Continue reading... December 15, 2017 at 07:40PM