Surgeon who burned initials into patients' livers struck off medical register
Simon Bramhall said the brandings were to relieve tensions
A former consultant surgeon who burned his initials into two unconscious patients' livers has been struck off the medical register.
Simon Bramhall, 57, had pleaded guilty to two counts of assault of beating at Birmingham Crown Court in 2017.
During the trial, it was discovered that Bramhall, a liver transplant surgeon at the time, had branded the organs with an argon beam machine at Birmingham's Queen Elizabeth Hospital.
In his defence, the surgeon said that he was trying to relieve tension in the operating theatre after long and difficult transplant surgeries in 2013.
At the sentencing hearing in 2018, one of Bramhall's victims has suffered serious psychological damage, while another wished to forget about what had happened to them.
The man was given a community order and fined ÂŁ10,000 for what he had done to his patients.
On Tuesday, following a review by the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service, Bramhall's name should be cleared from the medical register as his actions were "borne out of a degree of professional arrogance".
The tribunal's concluding remarks said that a suspension order would not be enough to protect the wider public and thus, the only suitable option was to be erased from the register.
Continuing, the tribunal said: "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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