Surgeon on ABH charge for ‘carving initials’ on two patients’ livers

A TRANSPLANT surgeon who allegedly branded his initials on to patients’ livers has been charged with causing them actual bodily harm.

Consultant surgeon Simon Bramhall, 53, is charged with burning ‘SB’ on to the livers of two patients during transplants when he worked at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham.

During an operation on February 9, 2013, the experienced surgeon allegedly assaulted a male patient causing actual bodily harm. On August 21 that year a female patient had a transplant and Bramhall is alleged to have also caused her actual bodily harm.

Liver surgeons use an argon beam to stop livers bleeding by making the blood coagulate, but can also use it to burn the surface of the liver to sketch out the area of an operation.

It is usually not harmful and the marks would normally disappear. But the liver of the female patient did not heal itself in the normal manner and Bramhall’s initials were found in a follow-up operation, it is alleged.

Bramhall of Redditch, Worcestershire, who denies two counts of actual bodily harm, was a liver, spleen and pancreatic surgeon who worked in the hospital’s liver unit for 12 years.

He was also involved in tutoring and examining medical students and supervising postgraduate students in higher degrees, management and research.

He was suspended by the University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust after the allegations came to light. A spokesman for the trust said that he no longer works there.