I (36 f) just started talking to this guy (43 m) I matched with on an app. We FaceTimed for a long time the first night where he called me from the hospital he works at as a cardiac surgeon’s assistant.
He continued the call during his drive home and then gave me a tour of his apartment where there’s a view of the hospital he works at from the balcony. He definitely was trying to show off, but who doesn’t put their best foot forward in the beginning? At one point he screen shared photos of himself- including medical photos of him working on patients.
The next morning I woke up to text messages sent from him at 3am and 6am that were really over the top. I cautioned him about love bombing and he claimed to have never heard of it but swore his intentions were pure. He tried calling via FaceTime but I missed it. An hour or so later I FaceTimed him back and he answered but didn’t say anything. On the screen in front of me is a patient laying there with their chest cavity open while a team of medical professionals performs OPEN HEART SURGERY!!! I’m just watching in disbelief like what in the actual fuck.
He’s at the foot of the bed and the patient is draped but their legs are exposed. I can’t help but notice how yellow their skin is.
The guy then walks over to the display screen so I can see what is happening up close. He passed a colleague at this point who clearly was unaware he was on a call- he was doing this secretly. He stood at the screen for a minute then walked back over to the patient. I continued watching in silence and shock until my gut told me to hang up. The call lasted 4 minutes.
He tried calling back a few minutes later but I didn’t answer so he sent me a text saying, “a little sample of my world.” A bit after that he texted me saying what a bitch of a case it is due to how calcified the patient’s heart is. I just said “wow. I see.”
Later that night I told him I wasn’t interested and blocked him. He immediately texted from another number. Blocked that one too.
After talking with a handful of medical professionals I now know that he was scrubbed in and sterile due to his position and was 100000% not supposed to do what he did for numerous reasons including HIPAA violations.
I doubt I was the first person this sociopath did this to in a repulsive attempt to flex.
I feel so gross. I unintentionally violated someone’s privacy and autonomy and they were unconscious and don’t even know it happened. The worst part is that this patient’s life was potentially risked so some ego-obsessed man could flex to a woman he’s never even met and had connected with less than 24 hrs prior.
(Before anyone goes wild in the comments- yes, appropriate action has been taken).
TL;DR: Cardiac surgeon’s assistant whom I’ve never met answered FaceTime call in the operating room in an attempt to impress me. I, a hospitality professional, had a non consensual live stream view of open heart surgery.
Comments
what the fuck
You cautioned him about love bombing?
That was kind of you, but unwise. “Hey, this makes you look like a controlling predator, you might want to tone that down” means you are teaching a predator how to reel in his prey more effectively. Don’t do that.
Notice how the behavior was, indeed, an indicator of who this guy really was. I am very glad your instincts were on point and you cut your losses on him quickly.
Wow…fucking boundaries
Ugh. That is definitely one for the record books. I hope you informed whatever hospital he works for. That is so horrifying.
What a psycho!
You should probably report him for that. That’s gotta be a hipaa violation
Umm. You should call the hospital’s risk or quality dept (or their anonymous reporting hotline) and report him. MAJOR violation of hospital policy and patient privacy.
Awesome that you have already taken appropriate action, this guy should not be working in an operating room.
Get his name, call that hospital, report him. Not only is this a pile of violations, it’s absolutely dangerous!
He’s bringing in a filthy germ-ridden phone and he’s DISTRACTED during open heart surgery!
Call and report him immediately. Even if you don’t have proof, tell them and tell them to watch him.
Mobile phones are not sterile. And he seems crazy.
This is 100% egregious. Fuck the love bombing and the weird attempt at flexing. This is a very serious violation of the patient’s right to privacy. Imagine being the person laying on the table with your chest ripped open and your surgeon is on the phone with a person he’s trying to stick his dick into bragging about his work. None of the staff stepped in to stop this wildly inappropriate behavior? I would be on the phone and reporting him to every single regulatory agency and to his hospital about his misconduct. Absolutely wild behavior from a surgeon.
JFC. That’s horrifying
Definitely a violation of the patient’s privacy and something the hospital needs to know. All you need to do is call the hospital patient advocate and report date, time and who he is.
We use our phones all the time in the operating room but we don’t record patients without consent. Sometimes we will photograph findings to upload in the patients chart.
Lastly, the patients legs looked yellow because there was something called Ioban on them. It’s an iodine impregnated adhesive drape that reduces infection.
Thank you for taking appropriate action. I’m often a patient in hospitals and all I could think of is being the patient and unknowingly having my body being shown to someone who has no business seeing it. As patients we put so much trust in doctors and nurses with the assumption that they will be professional and mindful. What he did is so gross to me. I get that he was trying to brag but he had no right doing what he did. If that’s the kind of person he is, disrespecting someone’s body like that then he has no business being in the medical profession.
If this is real report him to his hospital
Report this man to the medical board please! He’s breaking hippa and potentially not being sterile in an operation! He’s breaking is doing lots of harm. Please save your community by reporting him the the state medical boards
Agreed as others have said. Aside from the unhinged behavior as a date, what he did is a huge liability. For one, this persons chest is wide open and he’s got his disgusting, germy phone in his hand. Now his hands are no longer clean and since he’s doing this on the DL it’s doubtful he went back and scrubbed again. So he’s touching the instruments, other drs hands and this patient with germy phone hands. Did you know a phone is pretty much the filthiest thing we touch all day? Now those germs are in this patients chest cavity. He could have very well caused a deadly infection for the patient. I’m sure that’s just the kind of guy you want to date— one who sees his patients he should be caring for as props to get dates. It’s disgusting behavior on that alone but there are so many horrible layers to this shit cake. I know you said you took care of this but please report it to a HIPAA hotline as well as the hospital administration. Without HIPPA involvement the hospital could try to rug sweep it but HIPPA is pretty good about preventing that once they are involved.
Wow. He sounds a lot like that guy who was a nurse anesthesiologist pretending to be a doctor – who then stole drugs and scammed women. (Can’t remember the name of the series they made?) That’s the kind of thing that guy would do to impress women. You made the right call on this.