Nine years later, the British Practitioners Tribunal Service told Simon Bramhall that he could not be a doctor any more.

In the UK, transplant doctor Simon Bramhall used a laser to sign the livers of two of his patients during surgery.

According to available information, this happened in 2013, when the 57-year-old surgeon worked at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham.

The doctor used an argon beam machine (a device designed to stop bleeding during liver operations) to draw his initials about four centimeters high on the organs of patients.

Bramhall’s actions were noticed by a colleague who reported what he had seen. As a result, the doctor quit the medical facility, and five years later the court fined him $13,700 (£10,000) for what he had done.

In 2020, the surgeon was suspended by a court decision, but five months later he won an appeal in his case. And only two days ago, on January 11, the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) decided to permanently remove Bramhall from the medical register and permanently forbade him from practicing medicine.

As indicated, the doctor’s actions did not harm the health of patients, but the tribunal regarded such behavior as “professional arrogance”.

In its report, the tribunal found: “The Tribunal, having concluded that a suspension order would be insufficient to protect the wider public interest, determined that the appropriate and proportionate sanction is erasure.

“The physical assault of two vulnerable patients whilst unconscious in a clinical setting, one of whom experienced significant and enduring emotional harm, seriously undermines patients’ and the public’s trust and confidence in the medical profession and inevitably brings the profession as a whole into disrepute.

“Mr Bramhall abused his position of trust and during the short period it took for him to mark his initials he placed his own interests above the interests of his patients.”

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