British surgeons who sign "SB" on patients' livers are disqualified from practicing medicine!

According to foreign media such as business insider website, CBS, BBC website and other foreign media reported on the 12th, a surgeon named Simon Bramhall in the United Kingdom many years ago carved his initials "SB" on the liver of two patients who looked for his main knife, which caused great public outrage after being discovered. On January 10, local time, the Licensing Office of Practicing Physicians (MPTS) decided to remove him from the country's register of doctors and permanently prohibit him from practicing medicine.

Source: BBC website

The incidents occurred in February and August 2013, when Simon Bramhall "carved" the initials of his name "SB" on the surface of a patient's liver with an argon-helium knife during two liver transplants. Later, another doctor found the letter signature while returning the patient, and he immediately realized that it was unusual. Because the transplant may use non-toxic argon-helium freezing techniques to stop liver bleeding, or burn the surface of the liver to outline the surgical area, but never write meaningless letters on the patient's liver.

In 2014, Bramhall quit his job at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham. He worked at Queen Elizabeth Hospital for 10 years and is a well-known liver transplant specialist in the region. In the decades that Simon has been practicing medicine, there have been countless liver transplants or other organ-related surgeries that have been personally supervised, and many patients who have been treated by him have also sat on needles after this matter was exposed, and they suspect that their bodies may also be "signed" by him, but they are not worthy of surgical examination for this matter, which has caused quite a stir in the local area.

In December 2017, Bram Hall pleaded guilty to carving a letter on a patient's liver at Birmingham Royal Court. In January 2018, birmingham Royal Court sentenced him to a £12 million fine for 12 months of community pro bono service.

In December 2020, the court reviewed Bram Hall's conduct again, but he himself argued that he had made such a move because of "great pressure at work", and the court did not revoke his medical qualifications for reasons, but only sentenced him to a five-month suspension. But after "certainly not a clear risk of re-practicing medicine," his suspension was withdrawn in June 2021.

However, the case has recently been resubmitted to the Medical Practitioners Tribunal (MPTS). At the Jan. 10 hearing, MPTS said it was "somehow an act of professional arrogance" that "undermined" trust between doctors and patients. Although Bram hall's actions did not cause lasting physical harm to the two patients, it caused "serious emotional harm" to one of the patients. The report also notes that while Bram hall was "previously of good character," removal from the doctors' register was an "appropriate sanction" because the "general context of the provision of life-saving care" did not mitigate "Bramhall's grave violation of the patient's dignity and autonomy."

It is worth mentioning that Bram Hall and his writing partner, Fiorne Murphy, seem to have written these signature events into a novel. The two published a book called Letterman, which read: "All that is needed is a moment." A moment of madness – everything will be different. During a life-saving transplant, a surgeon was found to have his name first inscribed on a donated liver, and everything changed, not only for him and his patients, but for everyone around them. The ensuing conflict played out in the medical community, in the global media, and eventually in the courtroom that tried justice itself. Who wins when everyone loses? ”

The authors describe him as "a general surgeon who started his career at Queen Elizabeth Hospital" and "a recently retired senior consultant specialising in groundbreaking liver transplantation".

Upstream News Compiled by Ruochen Yang