All the best horror stories have a deranged doctor or scientist desperate to make their mark on the world – Frankenstein, Human Centipede, Silence of Lambs – but now a UK doctor has followed suit.
Okay, that might be dramatic, but a surgeon has admitted to burning his initials into the livers of two transplant patients with a laser beam which seems wholly unnecessary.
Simon Bramhall, 53, branded his patients’ organs with “SB” with an argon beam that’s supposed to be used to stop livers bleeding.
WATCH: Speaking of questionable doctors…
But how on earth did the patients find out?
Well the female patient’s liver didn’t heal properly and the initials were found in a routine follow-up operation.
The act itself isn’t usually harmful and the marks would normally disappear but still… why.
On Wednesday, Bramhall admitted two counts of assault by beating at Birmingham Crown Court but pleaded not guilty to alternative charges of assault occasioning actual bodily harm.
Prosecutor Tony Badenoch QC accused the surgeon of abusing his position and carried out the act with a disregard for the feelings of the unconscious patients.
“His acts in marking the livers of those patients were deliberate and conscious acts.
“Suffice to say, for current purposes, these pleas meet the broad public interest.
“It will be for others to decide whether and to what extent his fitness to practise is impaired.”
Mr Badenoch added: “This has been a highly unusual and complex case, both within the expert medical testimony served by both sides and in law.
“It is factually, so far as we have been able to establish, without legal precedent in criminal law.”
At least he didn’t take it to Hannibal Lecter extremes I guess…
