SCAR DOC IN JAIL ESCAPE
A TRANSPLANT surgeon who burned his initials onto patients’ livers escaped jail yesterday – after one saying she felt like a rape victim.
The woman “autographed” by Simon Bramhall said his actions left her plagued by nightmares.
She discovered Bramhall had marked two patients’ livers “SB” during surgery at Birmingham’s Queen Elizabeth Hospital when a report was released in 2013.
But the horror of her ordeal was revealed when a medic from the hospital contacted her to tell her she was one of them.
“It was what I would imagine the feeling is for someone who is a victim of rape,” she said.
Bramhall, 53, was fined £10,000, given a 12-month community order and told to do 120 hours of unpaid work and pay £1,500 costs after admitting assault by beating.
Judge Paul Farrer QC described his actions as an abuse of power. The surgeon used an argon beam machine to write his initials on the organs of two anaesthetised patients. One woman received a donor organ in a life-saving operation carried out by him five years ago.
But the liver failed a week later and another surgeon spotted Bramhall’s initials on the organ. Bramhall, who now works for the NHS in Herefordshire, admitted using the argon beam.
Tony Badenoch QC said the woman felt violated.
Birmingham Crown Court heard Bramhall’s actions did not cause either victims’ new livers to fail.
A hospital spokesman said Bramhall made a mistake in the context of a complex clinical situation.
Bramhall can still carry out operations after the General Medical Council ruled him fit to practice.