Il Guardian racconta la storia di un famoso chirurgo britannico, specialista in trapianti di fegato, che è stato espulso dalla sua associazione professionale per un comportamento giudicato scorretto e che neanche lui riesce a spiegarsi, ripensandoci oggi.

La storia, che lasciamo ai lettori il piacere di scoprire, gira intorno a un caso capitato in circostanze del tutto eccezionali e viene narrata inquadrando l’accaduto nella defatigante pratica chirurgica e nel senso di arroganza che pervade l’ambiente, oggi comunque meno di qualche decennio fa.

Bramhall thinks the black humour he took for granted in operating theatres was a product of the type of people who are drawn to surgery. “Surgeons are at one end of a spectrum of doctors, undoubtedly. It’s what in my day you would have called a type A personality – aggressive, macho. I saw the people who were consultants when I was training, and then I guess I became one myself…
… In a highly hierarchical environment like a surgical theatre, speaking up can come with real consequences. “People still don’t report because they think nothing will happen,” Cuming says. “And we know what happens to whistleblowers in the NHS – quite often, they end up losing their own jobs.