SB WUZ HERE: Surgeon pleads guilty to burning initials into patients’ organs

Enlarge (credit: Getty | ANNE-CHRISTINE POUJOULAT)

It's usually OK to be proud of your work and lend your name to it. But most people would draw the line at signing their initials into the flesh of internal organs.

Not Dr. Simon Bramhall of the UK, apparently. He pleaded guilty to charges that he etched his initials, "SB," onto the livers of two transplant patients with an argon beam in 2013. Bramhall admitted the assaults in a hearing in Birmingham crown court on Wednesday, according to several news outlets. In doing so, he pleaded guilty to two counts of assault by beating, but he pleaded not guilty to the more serious charge of assault occasioning actual bodily harm. Prosecutors were said to have accepted his pleas, and he is scheduled to be sentenced on January 12.

Bramhall previously worked at Birmingham's Queen Elizabeth hospital, where he gained fame for a dramatic liver transplant in 2010. Bramhall transplanted the liver following the fiery crash-landing of the plane that was transporting the donor liver to Birmingham. Though the pilots were injured, the liver was intact and salvaged from the burning wreckage. The transplant spared the life of Dr. Bramhall's desperately ill patient.

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