# doctor carves initials on patient **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [April 27, 2000, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-carves-initials-on-patient/16466 "2000-04-27T19:57:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Whammo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8dc957/32.png) [@Whammo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whammo)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2000, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-carves-initials-on-patient/16466/1 "2000-04-27T19:57:00Z")
This sounds like an UL but its not. The nurses said that he was so proud of the suturing he just did that he carved his initials into the patient! I will try to find a link to the news article. Doc Who Left Initials on Patient Quits Medicine April 26, 2000 8:09 am EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - A Manhattan judge said on Tuesday she would spare from jail an obstetrician who carved his initials on the belly of a woman whose child he had just delivered, noting the doctor had brain disease. Dr. Allan Zarkin, 61, had been charged with two counts of assault and faced up to 25 years in prison. But in a deal recommended by prosecutors, he was allowed to plead guilty to second degree assault on condition that he be placed on probation for five years and did “not practice medicine anywhere.” Assistant District Attorney Martha Bashford told the judge the carving victim, dentist Liana Gedz, “was steadfast in her opinion that jail would not be appropriate as long as he did not practice medicine and was not a danger to the community.” Zarkin etched a three-inch “A.Z.” into Gedz’s skin as she lay sedated on the delivery table at New York Beth Israel Medical Center last September after undergoing a Caesarean section. “After the procedure was over, I used my scalpel and scratched my initials in her abdomen,” Zarkin told Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Renee White. His license to practice medicine was revoked by the State Health Department Feb. 3 and the hospital was fined $14,000 for ignoring repeated warning signs about Zarkin’s bizarre behavior. Judge White set May 30 for formal sentencing but said she would go along with the prosecutor’s recommendation. She said Zarkin suffered from “a frontal lobe disorder” called Pick’s disease, an Alzheimer’s-like condition that causes personality and behavior changes and dementia. Gedz is suing Zarkin and the hospital in civil court for $5.5 million and has said that what he did to her makes her feel “like a branded animal.” ---
**Author:** ![Whammo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8dc957/32.png) [@Whammo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whammo)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2000, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-carves-initials-on-patient/16466/2 "2000-04-27T20:00:00Z")
heres a link… I just cant beleive it! [http://www.nypost.com/news/1055.htm](http://www.nypost.com/news/1055.htm) ---
**Author:** ![mega\_the\_roo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3da27b/32.png) [@mega\_the\_roo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mega_the_roo)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2000, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-carves-initials-on-patient/16466/3 "2000-04-27T20:01:00Z")
Wow. * * * “Mega the Roo - Patron Saint of Marsupials and Shampoo” -Ms Riddles ---
**Author:** ![Cessandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/59ef9b/32.png) [@Cessandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cessandra)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2000, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-carves-initials-on-patient/16466/4 "2000-04-27T22:20:00Z")
That’s… sick. * * * [Cessandra](http://envy.nu/cessandra/profile/) I would’ve gotten away with it, too, if it weren’t for those meddling kids! ---
**Author:** ![Strainger](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/strainger/32/244_2.png) [@Strainger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Strainger)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2000, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-carves-initials-on-patient/16466/5 "2000-04-27T22:23:00Z")
Where have y’all been, college? The carving incident was in the news a few months ago. ---
**Author:** ![guitarmax\_99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/f19dbf/32.png) [@guitarmax\_99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guitarmax_99)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2000, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-carves-initials-on-patient/16466/6 "2000-04-27T22:36:00Z")
Definitely a candidate for the “News Of The Weird” web page. Thanks for sharing! * * * I feel much better since I’ve given up hope. ---
**Author:** ![Nightingale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecae2f/32.png) [@Nightingale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nightingale)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2000, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doctor-carves-initials-on-patient/16466/7 "2000-04-27T23:14:00Z")
What I want to know is, WHERE THE HECK WAS THE REST OF THE OPERATING STAFF WHEN THIS WAS GOING ON?!?!?!? I can sort of understand if the guy managed to carve the first part of the first letter, but why on earth didn’t someone stop this lunatic? I’ve witnessed more than one C section, and there were always at least three nurses present, not to mention another surgeon and (most of the time) the baby’s father. Was everybody asleep or what? * * * “There are more things you don’t know than there are things that I do know. I despair of the imbalance.” – Dr. Morgenes, _The Dragonbone Chair_