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Bad Medicine: Daffy Doctors & Medical Mishaps

There was a surgeon who'd brand his initials on patients' internal organs with a cauterising instrument. At least he left things where they were!

Oh crikey I remember that. Although many were pretty upset about the situation, one of the potential victims was on the news saying she had no problem with it as he was like an artist signing off his work... ok... :rolleyes: :crazy: :thought:
 
Oh crikey I remember that. Although many were pretty upset about the situation, one of the potential victims was on the news saying she had no problem with it as he was like an artist signing off his work... ok... :rolleyes: :crazy: :thought:
That's certainly a different way of looking at it!! (artist signing off work) o_O

Maybe I need to have more of whatever they are having!! :dunno:
 
Oh crikey I remember that. Although many were pretty upset about the situation, one of the potential victims was on the news saying she had no problem with it as he was like an artist signing off his work... ok... :rolleyes: :crazy: :thought:

He's called Simon Bramhall -
(Safe Guardian link)

Surgeon admits marking his initials on the livers of two patients

A surgeon has pleaded guilty to marking his initials on the livers of two patients while performing transplant surgery.

In a hearing at Birmingham crown court on Wednesday, Simon Bramhall admitted two counts of assault by beating relating to incidents on 9 February and 21 August 2013. He pleaded not guilty to the more serious charges of assault occasioning actual bodily harm.

The renowned liver, spleen and pancreas surgeon used an argon beam, usedto stop livers bleeding during operations and to highlight an area due to be worked on, to sign his initials into the patients’ organs. The marks left by argon are not thought to impair the organ’s function and usually disappear by themselves.

He pleaded to 'assault by beating', should have been 'assault by heating'! :chuckle:

As you say, his patients are generally forgiving, though a couple were not. If this had happened to me I'd've liked a personal apology.

Bramhall was fined £10000 and also sentenced to a 12 month community order at Birmingham Crown Court. He was also suspended from his post at the hospital.

More interestingly, his activities are now referred to in medical students' training in ethics.
 
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Not in medical students' ethics?

Proper craftsmen also sign their work.
 
If this had happened to me I'd've liked a personal apology.

Totally agree. I mean there's the fact that he's done something completely unnecessary, potentially adding to scar tissue. However what bothers me more is the 'branding' aspect, like he forever owns his patients in some way... it's just really creepy. Plus how did no-one see him do it?? Perhaps people weren't really paying attention when he was closing up, and were engaged in other activities. Or perhaps someone once saw something and thought 'surely not' or 'he knows what he's doing'. A bit like those air crash investigation episodes where no-one dares question the pilot's poor or strange decisions and the plane goes up in flames...

More interestingly, his activities are now referred to in medical students' training in ethics.

Ahh I didn't know that! Imagine: "Don't brand your patients kids, it's not nice." :thought:
 
Totally agree. I mean there's the fact that he's done something completely unnecessary, potentially adding to scar tissue. However what bothers me more is the 'branding' aspect, like he forever owns his patients in some way... it's just really creepy. Plus how did no-one see him do it?? Perhaps people weren't really paying attention when he was closing up, and were engaged in other activities. Or perhaps someone once saw something and thought 'surely not' or 'he knows what he's doing'. A bit like those air crash investigation episodes where no-one dares question the pilot's poor or strange decisions and the plane goes up in flames...



Ahh I didn't know that! Imagine: "Don't brand your patients kids, it's not nice." :thought:
You've made it feel a lot more creepy and wrong with your description!!
 
This Toronto man went to the hospital with severe leg pains, but was sent home because he was being treated for bipolar disorder and the attending psychiatrist concluded the pain was all in his head. He had to crawl to the exit. Days later a different hospital diagnosed him as having Guillain-Barré Syndrome.
Video captures patient crawling out of hospital after staff dismiss pleas for help

David Pontone's voice still shakes as he recalls having to crawl out of Toronto's Humber River Hospital on his hands and knees.

"The pain was unbearable," said Pontone. "To be able to walk properly was impossible."

It happened on April 18, 2018, but involved a lengthy battle for his family to obtain video footage of the event.

The 45-year-old had gone to emergency, complaining of excruciating pain in his legs.

Pontone also told medical staff he took medication for bipolar affective disorder — a mental illness that causes severe depression and episodes of mania — but that he'd been stable for seven years. He says that disclosure affected his treatment.

"They thought I was faking it because I was bipolar," Pontone told Go Public. "There are no words to describe what I went through that night."

Been wronged? Contact the Go Public team
One of Canada's leading psychiatric experts says overlooking serious physical health issues in people who struggle with mental illness is a widespread problem — and that it can severely shorten their lifespans.

"We are failing this population miserably," said Dr. Vicky Stergiopoulos, psychiatrist and physician-in-chief at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) in Toronto ...

When Pontone arrived at emergency he was seen by a doctor who ordered an MRI but also referred him to an on-call psychiatrist after learning about his mental illness. ...

In medical records ... , the psychiatrist noted that "anxiety" seemed to be Pontone's most dominant symptom — despite Pontone having said he was in a great deal of pain and had been suffering from increasing leg pain for a month.

Another note says the reason for Pontone's visit is "bipolar" — not his inability to walk.

When the MRI didn't find anything unusual, the psychiatrist discharged Pontone. ...

It took Pontone about 20 minutes to reach the exit. A security guard later helped him to a waiting taxi.

He says the doctors had made him think his pain was "all in his head," so a few days later, he made his way to CAMH, where a psychiatrist immediately determined that his suffering had nothing to do with his mental health.

An ambulance took him to Toronto Western Hospital in downtown Toronto, where a neurologist diagnosed Guillain-Barré Syndrome, a rare
disorder in which the body's immune system attacks the nerves. ...

FULL STORY (With Pics & Video): https://www.cbc.ca/news/gopublic/hospital-patient-crawls-out-mental-illness-1.5871307
 
The same doctor from my previous post is in the news again – for operating on two patients at once, to make more money! Okay, so the doctor deserves the blame and everything the law can throw at him, but what the hell were other staff and the hospital authority doing? I'm guessing they turned a blind eye in the first case out of deference/a fear of being called a whistleblower, and in the second case that they were raking in the cash.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...ones-scandal-sedation-operations-b718918.html

The power of the surgeon - general health is so like the friggin army.
 
This Toronto man went to the hospital with severe leg pains, but was sent home because he was being treated for bipolar disorder and the attending psychiatrist concluded the pain was all in his head. He had to crawl to the exit. Days later a different hospital diagnosed him as having Guillain-Barré Syndrome.
disorder in which the body's immune system attacks the nerves. ...

FULL STORY (With Pics & Video): https://www.cbc.ca/news/gopublic/hospital-patient-crawls-out-mental-illness-1.5871307

So much was wrong there, but the review by the on-call psych doc is normal.
 
Considering it was a Scottish hospital, she's lucky to have gotten out without contracting a serious infection. Seriously, though, the NHS up here seems to be in even more of a crisis than down South (which is saying something), my family members can tell some stories too, but nothing as awful as @littlebrowndragon 's tale of woe. I wish I could offer constructive advice, but I got nuthin'.

Just to add my experience - my major operation back in 2018 was courtesy of NHS Scotland and I had some very unpleasant experiences during my 11-day stay afterwards. I've never actively blocked anything out of my mind before, but with this I have, to the point that I'm aware only on a very high level of what happened. I think there were a total of 2 staff (one ward nurse, another a male nurse/junior doctor, I don't know exactly who he was) who were actually half decent. The rest of them - sadistic and uncaring. And this was on more than one ward in the same city hospital.

(And yes, judging by the state of the hospital, it is a wonder I didn't contract an infection).

I'm the sort of person - possibly as a result of anxiety, I don't know - who needs to think things over and go over them in my mind until I "accept" them, if that makes sense. But I've never been able to do that with my hospital stay, because it is too painful. As soon as my mind starts to drift into those memories I shut them away and force myself to think of something else. Which is probably not good for me in the long run, but it's all I can do. Doesn't help that ongoing physical pain from the operation makes me start to think about it more than I'd like to.

I just wanted to add this post to the conversation not for sympathy but because I feel its important that people realise how many patients do not have a good experience with our "caring" NHS.
 
Just to add my experience - my major operation back in 2018 was courtesy of NHS Scotland and I had some very unpleasant experiences during my 11-day stay afterwards. I've never actively blocked anything out of my mind before, but with this I have, to the point that I'm aware only on a very high level of what happened. I think there were a total of 2 staff (one ward nurse, another a male nurse/junior doctor, I don't know exactly who he was) who were actually half decent. The rest of them - sadistic and uncaring. And this was on more than one ward in the same city hospital.

(And yes, judging by the state of the hospital, it is a wonder I didn't contract an infection).

I'm the sort of person - possibly as a result of anxiety, I don't know - who needs to think things over and go over them in my mind until I "accept" them, if that makes sense. But I've never been able to do that with my hospital stay, because it is too painful. As soon as my mind starts to drift into those memories I shut them away and force myself to think of something else. Which is probably not good for me in the long run, but it's all I can do. Doesn't help that ongoing physical pain from the operation makes me start to think about it more than I'd like to.

I just wanted to add this post to the conversation not for sympathy but because I feel its important that people realise how many patients do not have a good experience with our "caring" NHS.

To add some context, I would say many of the issues are thanks to underfunding, poor management and overworked staff. But I'll leave that there because I don't want to go off on a (political) one.
 
Funding / management issues are no excuse for treating patients like shit, though. And it's hard to argue that "overwork" is the issue when they're stood around chatting while patients are suffering.

If people don't want to help and look after patients then they shouldn't work in that profession.
 
Bing translation:

Another seventeen children appear to have been conceived with the sperm of the now deceased gynaecologist Jan Wildschut from Zwolle. The total number of donor children of the man doubles to 34. A spokesman for the Isala Hospital confirmed this on Saturday in an interview with NU.nl after reports from De Stentor.

Last October, the Zwolse hospital already reported that at least seventeen donor children were conceived with Wildschut's seed. The hospital already took into account that the actual number of children of the gynecologist would be greater.

Even now that it is known that Wildschut fertilized another seventeen women with his sperm, the research into more descendants of the gynecologist continues, the spokesman confirms. "We still have no idea of the extent. But "we knew this was going to happen." The hospital calls Wildschut's actions morally unacceptable.

Aantal donorkinderen van Zwolse 'spermadokter' verdubbelt naar 34 | NU - Het laatste nieuws het eerst op NU.nl
 
Funding / management issues are no excuse for treating patients like shit, though. And it's hard to argue that "overwork" is the issue when they're stood around chatting while patients are suffering.

If people don't want to help and look after patients then they shouldn't work in that profession.

Did you complain?
 
Did you complain?

No, the thought sometimes crosses my mind that I ought to have done, but I honestly don't think it would help.

There were a couple of reasons why I didn't:
Firstly, I had prior experience of complaining to them because of the length of time it was taking to get treatment (over a year from initial diagnosis, and several months even after they suspected cancer). All they did was fob me off with an apology about "exceeding their waiting time promise" or some such nonsense.
Secondly, complaining would have meant describing the full extent of the experience and like I said, I'm not in a position psychologically to be able to do that. I can only think of these incidents on a very high level; any more and it is too upsetting.

I did alert the nurses on the ward about one of the issues that left me in tremendous pain and discomfort (relating to when I had to go for a scan) after it had happened, and they said they'd make sure it didn't happen again. A couple of days later when I had to go for another scan, the same issue did happen again. :rage: One tends to feel there's little point in mentioning issues if they're not going to be addressed.
 
Sorry to hear that. When my mum was in hospital with a heart attack, one doctor in particular treated her as if she was, if not faking it, then overstating her affliction. The fact she had nearly died didn't faze him at all. But the nurses seemed to be aware of how bad he was at his job, and made my mum feel more comfortable. Basically, you're not going to get everyone in a workplace doing as good a job as they should, but if most them are, then we should be grateful, when you're ill you're always going to be in a vulnerable position no matter what.
 
Just to add my experience - my major operation back in 2018 was courtesy of NHS Scotland and I had some very unpleasant experiences during my 11-day stay afterwards. I've never actively blocked anything out of my mind before, but with this I have, to the point that I'm aware only on a very high level of what happened. I think there were a total of 2 staff (one ward nurse, another a male nurse/junior doctor, I don't know exactly who he was) who were actually half decent. The rest of them - sadistic and uncaring. And this was on more than one ward in the same city hospital.

(And yes, judging by the state of the hospital, it is a wonder I didn't contract an infection).

I'm the sort of person - possibly as a result of anxiety, I don't know - who needs to think things over and go over them in my mind until I "accept" them, if that makes sense. But I've never been able to do that with my hospital stay, because it is too painful. As soon as my mind starts to drift into those memories I shut them away and force myself to think of something else. Which is probably not good for me in the long run, but it's all I can do. Doesn't help that ongoing physical pain from the operation makes me start to think about it more than I'd like to.

I just wanted to add this post to the conversation not for sympathy but because I feel its important that people realise how many patients do not have a good experience with our "caring" NHS.

That's a real shame as the complaints procedure is one of the best ways to improve practice and maybe "move along" staff that are not up to doing the job. Usually, if it's a particular member of staff it won't be the first instance.

It's done very supportively and it's easily accessible. It can even be done via email.
 
Reading an old book on schizophrenia I saw John Nathaniel Rosen mentioned positively. The reality is very different:

A year and a half later, another patient Janet Katkow sued Rosen in Bucks County Pennsylvania. While in his custody from 1970 until 1979, Rosen continually abused her sexually, undressing and forcing her to suck his penis literally hundreds of times while he vapidly philosophized: “This is what it is all about, this is when a baby is at peace, when it is sucking.” When she invariably vomited, he rationalized her revulsion as vomiting up her mother’s bad milk. His “therapy” moved to include forcing her to lick his anus and consume his faeces, engaging in three-way sex and cunnilingus with another woman under threat of violence, and enforced sex with an elderly judge in a putative attempt to cure the judge’s impotence.

https://corticalchauvinism.com/2013...-psychoanalysis-3-john-nathaniel-rosen-fraud/
 
Owing to a pre-operative error in marking this elderly Austrian for surgery, the wrong leg was amputated. This meant the originally intended leg still had to be amputated as well.
Man has wrong leg amputated in 'tragic' hospital mix-up

An elderly man had the wrong leg amputated during surgery, a hospital in Austria has admitted.

The 82-year-old was due to have his left leg removed on Tuesday, but due to "human error" the right leg was amputated above the knee instead, the Freistadt Clinic said Friday.

The error occurred after a hospital worker mistakenly put a preoperative mark on the wrong leg, the hospital said.

"It was (Thursday) morning, in the course of the standard wound dressing change, that the tragic mistake, caused by human error, was discovered," said a statement from the clinic, which is located near Austria's border with the Czech Republic.

The patient was suffering from "numerous medical conditions" and ailments affected both his legs.

Following the mistake, the man needed to have the correct leg removed above the knee as well. ...

The man's family have been informed and psychological support has been offered to them, while the hospital has also sent the details of the incident to the region's public prosecutor.

"We would also like to affirm that we will be doing everything to unravel the case, to investigate all internal processes and critically analyze them. Any necessary steps will immediately be taken," the statement said.
FULL STORY: https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/21/health/austria-amputation-wrong-leg-scli-intl/index.html
 
Reading an old book on schizophrenia I saw John Nathaniel Rosen mentioned positively. The reality is very different:

agreed. Still dealing with the effects of "refrigerator mother" concept today :(
 
A patient 'dropped' during surgery has died within weeks of the incident.

"A woman has died after being "dropped" on the floor during surgery on her hip, which she had broken while in hospital.

Jeannette Shields, 70, had been receiving treatment for gall stones in Cumberland Infirmary in Carlisle.

North Cumbria Integrated Care NHS Trust said an investigation was under way "in relation to an incident involving a patient in one of our theatres".

Mrs Shields' husband, John, said he told the hospital he would not be "pushing this thing under the carpet"."

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-cumbria-57254855
 
A patient 'dropped' during surgery has died within weeks of the incident.

"A woman has died after being "dropped" on the floor during surgery on her hip, which she had broken while in hospital.

Jeannette Shields, 70, had been receiving treatment for gall stones in Cumberland Infirmary in Carlisle.

North Cumbria Integrated Care NHS Trust said an investigation was under way "in relation to an incident involving a patient in one of our theatres".

Mrs Shields' husband, John, said he told the hospital he would not be "pushing this thing under the carpet"."

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-cumbria-57254855

Having known a fair few surgery staff over the years this is quite bizarre as they are meticulous in what they do. Also, you always lift on "lift".
 
Having known a fair few surgery staff over the years this is quite bizarre as they are meticulous in what they do. Also, you always lift on "lift".
Yes, I'm having trouble imagining what went wrong (or the peculiar set of circumstances that would cause it).
 
She broke the hip, that they were operating on at the time of the incident, whilst in hospital.
Yes, I know that. What went wrong when transferring her from a gurney onto an operating table? All they have to do is slide an unconscious person from one surface to another, pretty much.
 
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