A surgeon in the United Kingdom has been removed from the country’s medical register after admitting to using an argon beam machine to brand two patients’ livers with his initials.
According to BBC, these incidents took place in 2013 and the initials were discovered by another doctor when one of the organ transplants failed after a week.
In December 2017, Simon Bramhall admitted to two charges of assault by beating as per the public documents from the U.K.’s Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS). He was thereafter given a 12-month community order and fined £10,000 in 2018 (one month later).
He had been suspended from practicing for at least five months in December 2020, and the MPTS agreed to review the case, including statements by Bramhall reportedly saying that he “foolishly made a mark on the adjacent liver”.
However, a recent review by the MPTS concluded Bramhall’s actions were “borne out of a degree of professional arrogance” and his name should be erased from the medical register, Daily Mail adds.
The tribunal found that “Mr Bramhall abused his position of trust and during the short period it took for him to mark his initials he placed his own interests above the interests of his patients.
“The Tribunal rejected the submission made on behalf of Mr Bramhall, that it was to relieve tension. It was an act borne out of a degree of professional arrogance.
“There is no indication before the Tribunal that this is a deep-seated attitudinal failing, but it occurred on two separate occasions within a six month period in the presence of others and Mr Bramhall did not initially recognise the magnitude of his criminal behaviour even when questioned.
“In these circumstances, the Tribunal concluded that the only proportionate sanction is erasure.
“The Tribunal has therefore directed that Mr Bramhall’s name be erased from the Medical Register.”
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