Top Surgeon Accused of Ruining Patients’ Transplant Chances

An acclaimed surgeon is under investigation for allegedly making secret changes to patient records that effectively denied them liver transplants, The New York Times reported. Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center in Houston said that the doctor, identified by the Times as J. Steve Bynon Jr., admitted to altering details in the government database, but it did not disclose a motive. Patients waiting for organs had their records changed to declare they would only accept a liver from a donor that would be impossible to find, such as a 300-pound toddler. Since discovering the irregularities, the hospital—which had a disproportionately high number of patients on the liver list die—has shut down its liver and kidney transplant programs, both of which were led by Bynon. He declined to comment, but Dr. Sanjay Kulkarni, vice chair of the ethics committee at the United Network for Organ Sharing, called the record changes “highly inappropriate.”