High-Profile Surgeon Accused of Branding Patient’s Liver with His Initials

While you’d expect a painter or a sculptor to sign his artwork, you’d never imagine a surgeon to do the same, if only for the reason that, well, his “work” is a living, breathing, and unconscious-because-of-the-anesthesia human being. Yet this is precisely what a well-known British surgeon is accused of doing.

British publication Express identifies him as Simon Bramhall: he is 48 years old and works at Birmingham’s Queen Elizabeth Hospital, enjoying a very solid reputation for his many life-saving interventions.

However, it seems, the good doctor is also fond of leaving a little something behind for people to remember him by, even if they can’t see it – unless, you know, someone else cuts into them and sees it first.

According to the publication, another surgeon performed an intervention on an unnamed patient and was shocked to find that he had “SB” branded on his liver. This could be a coincidence, but the fact that the name of his other doctor, who also operated on him, also started with these initials, made the “coincidence” a bit hard to believe.

The surgeon in question believes the branding was made “using a jet of argon gas, used in surgery to seal blood vessels,” Express reports. He also believes that there might be other patients bearing the same branding on internal organs, that is, if Dr. Bramhall really turned this into a hobby, more than a one-time thing.

“I’m hoping this is just a mistake, I don’t know what would possess someone to do that to another human being. What gives a person the right to do that to another? It could have happened hundreds of times, who knows. It was just luck that this incident was brought to light,” a source at the hospital tells the publication.

An investigation has been launched to determine whether the accusations against Dr. Bramhall are founded. He, in the meantime, has skipped work and is refusing to comment.

Joyce Robins of Patient Concern tells Express that the accusations are being taken very seriously because, “This is a patient we are talking about, not an autograph book.” Which is to say, if he’s found guilty, there will be hell to pay.