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Surgery is not photojournalism

To go in for surgery is to become vulnerable. We're put under anesthesia and, in some cases, literally opened up for others to see. But we trust that the professionals involved have our best interests at heart and whatever might be revealed about us will be kept confidential.

Alas, sometimes it's not.

The Arizona Republic reported this week that a surgeon at the Mayo Clinic in Phoenix couldn't resist the urge to share what he found during a recent gall bladder operation. It seems that when Adam Hansen, the chief resident of general surgery at the hospital, was attaching a catheter to the patient, he noticed that the patient had the phrase "Hot Rod" tattooed on his penis. So he snapped a picture with his cellphone and showed his colleagues. And then one of those colleagues called the Arizona Republic.

The Republic interviewed the patient, who said that Hansen called him to apologize and "He told me he didn't want me to read about it in the newspaper first." Nice. The patient also said Hansen told him he had erased the picture almost immediately (you know, after showing everyone in the office).

Said the patient to the Republic: "[The Mayo Clinic was] supposedly the best of the best. I have no complaints about the medical care I was given. But now I feel violated, betrayed and disgusted. I've never been in a hospital and (my) first experience is the worst thing ever." (He also added that "It was the most horrible thing I ever went though in my life," though it's unclear from the story whether he's talking about the picture or the experience of getting the tattoo.)

The Republic reports that Mayo has been investigating after one of the surgical support staff reported the incident to the administration and the punishment for Hansen could range from probation to termination.

It's notable that one of Hansen's colleagues dropped the dime on him. A study published earlier this month in the Annals of Internal Medicine reported that doctors were very resistant to reporting colleagues who had screwed up. That said, there were probably better ways of pointing out this mistake in judgment than calling a newspaper -- which itself might have been some kind of privacy violation.

And, of course, stories like this are almost certainly the exception to the rule. For something probably a lot more common, check out Freakonomics' Stephen Dubner's recent account of how strictly his doctor guards his privacy.

-Greg Dahlmann