And with that, a surgeon’s insurer’s head explodes

Just imagine your day if you are the insurer for Steven Kirshner, an orthopedic surgeon. You’re filing through the complaints filed against your various insureds — malpractice, failure to diagnose, failure to treat properly, and…huh?

Putting a temporary tattoo of a red rose on a patient’s belly while the patient was anesthetized?

Yikes (via Philly.com).

The doctor doesn’t deny it, with his lawyer saying that the tattoo “was intended just to make the patient feel better” and that he’s done it to other patients, none of whom have complained.

Arthur Caplan of Penn: “You cannot do something like this even as a joke.”

(My daughter, on hearing the basics: “It’d be all right if it was a Radio Adventures of Doctor Floyd tattoo, because then she could find out about a great show!”)

(hat tip Rick Linsk)

–BC