Re:Surgeon admits to branding initials on patients' livers
by orliesaurus on Monday December 18, 2017 @01:55AM
(#15949947)
I got laser surgery done and that left a big scar on my neck, can confirm 10 years later I'm still functioning properly. Now the liver is different but from reading the article it seems this was just a stupid non-life-threatening decision taken by a surgeon who thought he was painting on canvas
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Re:Surgeon admits to branding initials on patients' livers
by Johnny555 on Monday December 18, 2017 @02:07AM
(#15949981)
Yes, but my question wasn't "What if you had an unavoidable scar from laser surgery", my question was "would you feel harmed if I burnt my initials into some not-normally visible part of your skin" for no other reason than to say that I was there?
Even minor scarring adds to the bodies burden in healing, so I think it's hard to definitively say that the laser inscribed initials did not cause any harm or increased risk at all. After all, these were not strong, healthy people -- they were sick enough to require liver surgery... and one of them had to have followup treatment which is when the initials were discovered.