LRN No.18: the surgeon who signed his work
Plus: big yellow books
Simon Bramhall, one of the most experienced liver surgeons in the country, was at the top of his game in 2013, when he performed a transplant procedure on a woman in her thirties. Her new liver failed - it happens, sometimes - and a week later she was back in theatre for her second transplant.
His colleague was on-call that day. And when he opened the patient up, he saw, burned onto the surface of the liver she had received during the first procedure, in clear characters four centimetres high, two letters: ‘SB’.
There was no doubt who had burned these initials onto the patient’s liver. The question was why - and how Simon Bramall had been able to do it in a brightly-lit operating theatre surrounded by other staff.
I’ve tried to answer these questions in a piece I’ve written for The Guardian’s Saturday magazine, out this weekend. Simon Bramhall continued to practice surgery for nine years after he was found out, being struck off in 2022. I spoke to him at length for the piece - and some of the former patients who are among hundreds calling for him to have a his job back. If you’ve ever had surgery - or love someone who has - it will make you think about what goes on when you’re unconscious on the operating table.
The Price of Life exists! It is out.
Releasing a book feels very strange. It’s something you make on your own (in my case in a hoodie and pyjama bottoms in the office in my basement). For a year, it’s just something between you and your laptop. And then one day it’s out in the wild, in beautiful packaging, a real, solid thing. You have no idea how people will receive it.
People have been saying lovely things. The New Statesman said it was “morbidly fascinating and essential”. The Spectator has called it “excellent”, the Daily Mail called it “gripping”, and Literary Review said it was “compelling”. The Observer said the book was “vivid and disquieting” and the Daily Telegraph said I have “a keen eye for thought provoking stories … Jon Ronson meets Louis Theroux in the style of Joan Didion.” This, I will take.
I will be popping up in podcasts, on the radio and on TV to talk about it over the next few weeks. And there are lots of events in the pipeline - the next one is at Waterstones Gower Street in London on Wednesday. I would love to meet as many of my LRN subscribers as possible, so if you plan to come along to any of them, please come and say hi.
Things that have caught my eyes and ears (and mouth, this time):
Eyes popped at Philadelphia’s Mutter Museum - I was expecting a museum of anatomical education, but it was far grimmer than that. I saw bits of Einstein’s brain, a tumour removed from President Grover Cleveland’s jaw, and lots of conjoined twins pickled in jars. It prompted lots of notes in the real Little Red Notebook, some of which said “freak show”
Ate fresh, hand made pretzels and Philly cheesesteaks at Reading Terminal Market - the cheesesteaks taste a lot better than they look and sound, I promise
Loved this piece on how Covid changed politics by David Runciman
For reasons that will one day become clear, I have been becoming a cheerleading expert. How did I not watch the Netflix series Cheer before now? It is genius.
Love Reading Terminal Market. But Philly Chesesteaks are a culinary crime.