Surgeon Fined for Sharing Photo of Coma Patient’s Swastika-Tattooed Penis

An orthopedic surgeon in Queensland, Australia, has been hit with a $10,000 fine and a stern reprimand for being physically unable to prevent himself from taking a picture of the swastika a patient had tattooed on their penis and then sharing it in a WhatsApp chat.

The story begins in April 2019. The patient needed orthopedic surgery after a pipe bomb he was making at home exploded in his hands. The swastika penis tattoo demographic tends to heavily overlap with the homemade pipe bomb demographic.

The patient with his swastika-clad penis was placed in intensive care for a week, wherein he was intubated and placed into a coma. Rather than roll his eyes and chuckle at the stupidity of a man who tattooed a hate symbol on his dick, the surgeon figured he had to snap a pic to share with his colleagues in the group chat. The homies love pictures of surgical patients’ penises covered in swastikas.

Surgeon Fined for Sharing Photo of Coma Patient’s Nazi Penis Tattoo

Even though the picture was sent to fellow medical practitioners, an investigation revealed that sending the picture and WhatsApp chat to other people in the medical field had “no clinical or medical purpose.”

That makes me wonder: if he had simply tagged a question onto the picture, would he have provided himself enough justification to cover his own ass here? If he had asked his colleagues in the WhatsApp chat something like “Hey, is this a weird mole or a swastika tattoo?”, would he have gotten away with it? We may never know.

In 2020, the Office of the Health Ombudsman was tipped off about the pictures sent in the chat and launched an investigation, which seemed fairly open and shut. The surgeon’s ethical failings resulted in a reprimand and a fine of $10,000, despite the tribunal overseeing the investigation acknowledging that the surgeon expressed regret for having snapped and shared the picture.