Why Was Liver-Branding Surgeon, Simon Bramhall, Struck off Medical Register?

Doctors in the past could not be as professional as they should be in many aspects of medical practice. Certainly, if one takes a look at their past, he will find what some doctors called “harmless pranks” that would not be acceptable today. Simon Bramhall was one of those doctors who was having “fun” during surgeries at the expense of his patients.

Thinking he wouldn’t be discovered, the liver, spleen and pancreas surgeon burned his initials on the livers of his patients during transplant surgery which caused his subtraction from the medical register. He admitted using an argon beam that normally used to stop liver bleeding during surgeries and also to highlight the area of the transplant, just to sign his first letters of his name into his patients’ organs, since 2013, when he worked at Birmingham’s Queen Elizabeth hospital.

Signing On The Liver

Simon Bramhall, liver-branding transplant surgeon burned his initials on to the livers of two of his patients during transplant surgeries which ended up by knocking him off from the medical register, The Guardian reported.

The doctor avoided being struck off after saying that his behavior was due to “work stress.”

Consultant Simon, 57, used an argon beam machine to mark the organs during transplant operations.

His initials were found out on one of his patients' livers by chance after the donor organ Bramall “had transplanted failed about a week after he carried out the life-saving operation.”

Two years ago, when the Medical Practitioners Tribunal, headed by Christina Moller, considered that “his actions were seen by colleagues as out of character at a time of work-related stress,” according to the Daily Mail newspaper.

At that time, Mr. Bramhall took responsibility for his actions, pleaded guilty and sought to apologize, according to the same source.

An Old Arrogance

While working at Birmingham's Queen Elizabeth Hospital in 2013, Dr Simon Bramhall said he used an argon beam machine “to autograph the organs” of his patients during the transplant operations.

While investigating the case, the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) said it was an "act borne out of a degree of professional arrogance,” the Daily Mail reported.

MPTS added that his actions "undermined" public trust in medicine.

After one of his colleagues noticed “SB” on an organ during follow-up surgery on one of Bramhall’s patients in 2013, the 57-year-old was suspended from his post as a consultant surgeon at Birmingham’s Queen Elizabeth hospital.

However, despite the General Medical Council calling for his removal, the court “has decided to suspend him instead, after hearing he had been under pressure at the time of the incidents,” according to The Guardian.

In December 2017, Bramhall was convicted of ‘assault by beating’ at Birmingham Crown Court and in the following year, he was fined £10,000.

In December 2020, the doctor had been suspended from the profession for more than five months; however, a tribunal latest report found “his fitness practice was no longer impaired by reason of his criminal convictions and the suspension order was revoked, The Guardian commented.

Unfortunately for the doctor, the case was resubmitted to the tribunal service for doctors in the UK, MPTS, for its consideration.

On Monday, January 10, 2021, “MPTS found Bramhall's actions "breached" the trust between patient and doctor, and he was struck off,” as reported by the BBC.

‘Gross Violation’

Even though the tribunal said it "accepted that no lasting physical damage was caused to either patient", Bramhall's actions had caused “significant emotional harm” to one of them.

It also noted Bramhall was of “previous good character” but his removal from the medical register was the appropriate sanction as the "overall context of providing life-saving care" will not relieve “Mr. Bramhall's gross violation of his patients' dignity and autonomy.”

His actions turned to light when 1.6-inch, around 4cm, initials “SB" were found out by another doctor on an organ transplanted by Simon Bramhall and failed about a week after the surgery.

In a hearing at Birmingham crown court on Wednesday, The Guardian reported that “Simon Bramhall admitted two counts of assault by beating relating to incidents on February 9, and August 21, 2013.”

After Bramhall’s suspension, Joyce Robins, of Patient Concern, said that “this is a patient we are talking about, not an autograph book,” according to the same source.

During the trial, HHJ Farrer described Bramhall's behavior as “professional arrogance of such magnitude that it strayed into criminal behavior.”

He continued to say that “the physical harm suffered by the patient was not trivial.”