Memorial Hermann doctor admits altering transplant records

HOUSTON – The Houston Chronicle reports a surgeon in the liver transplant program at Memorial Hermann – Texas Medical Center admitted earlier this year to circumventing federal rules to make it highly unlikely that certain patients would receive an offer for a life-saving organ, according to federal documents provided this week to the Houston Chronicle. The surgeon, who was not named in the report but was later identified by the hospital as Dr. J. Steve Bynon, said he changed information in a transplant database without going through a formal review process. He is quoted in the documents as saying he took the “shortcut” to “ensure patients were safely transplanted.” Other hospital officials told regulators that the surgeon made the changes because his patients were sick, the documents say. Patients, however, were not notified of the changes while they remained active on the waitlist, according to the documents, which describe deficiencies found during an April 4 inspection by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

The surgeon “admitted that it was ‘all his fault,’ and he maybe should have inactivated the patients from the waitlist,” according to the documents. Making such changes without notifying patients is a breach of medical ethics, an expert told the Chronicle. The documents reveal new details about previously reported problems in the hospital’s liver transplant program and raise additional questions about Bynon’s possible motives. They portray an environment where he repeatedly acted without consulting the hospital’s medical review board, a group of medical workers that collectively decides which patients should be added or removed from the transplant wait list. Bynon, a prominent abdominal transplant surgeon who took over the Memorial Hermann program in 2011, has been sued by multiple families who allege their loved one died as a result of changes he made to transplant information. Neither Bynon nor his attorney responded to a request for comment Thursday.