There’s something deeply unsettling about the idea that a doctor, someone you trust with your life, could be the very person standing between you and survival. That’s exactly what federal prosecutors are alleging happened at Memorial Hermann Health System in Houston, where Dr. John Stevenson Bynon Jr. now faces five counts of making false statements in healthcare matters.
The indictment reads like a nightmare. Five patients. Three of them died. All of them allegedly had their medical records falsified in ways that made them ineligible for liver transplants they desperately needed.
When the System Fails the Most Vulnerable
Dr. Bynon wasn’t just any physician. He served as director of abdominal organ transplantation and surgical director for liver transplantation at Memorial Hermann. This was someone at the top of his field, with over 2,000 transplants under his belt across a 40-year career. His patients and their families trusted him completely. According to court records, none of them knew he was allegedly making false statements in their medical files.
One patient went 149 days without being eligible to receive a donor organ and died in February 2024. Another patient died during surgery to receive a new liver after being ineligible for 69 days. A third patient needed an urgent liver transplant but died just two days after Bynon allegedly entered false matching criteria that essentially made them invisible to the organ allocation system.
The two patients who survived? They got their transplants at different hospitals, away from Bynon’s care.
Questions Without Answers
Here’s what makes this case even more disturbing. Federal prosecutors haven’t explained why. What possible motive could drive a veteran transplant surgeon to allegedly falsify records that would condemn patients to death? The U.S. Attorney’s Office declined to comment on that question. The health implications are staggering, and families deserve answers.
Bynon’s attorney, Samy Khalil, came out swinging after his client’s court appearance. He called the prosecution “totally, totally misguided” and insisted everything Bynon did was lawful and in good faith. Khalil said they’re looking forward to “educating, frankly, the government on the medical concepts” involved in the case.
That’s an interesting defense strategy. Is he suggesting this is all a misunderstanding of complex medical procedures? That federal prosecutors don’t understand how organ transplant systems work?
The Aftermath Keeps Growing
Memorial Hermann shut down its entire liver and kidney transplant program when these accusations first surfaced in April 2024. Think about that for a second. An entire program, halted. How many other patients were affected during that year-long shutdown? The program only reactivated in 2025.
Now the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network has designated Memorial Hermann as a member not in good standing. That’s the most severe action they can take, a public declaration that there’s been a serious lapse in patient safety or quality of care. It’s the kind of mark that doesn’t just go away, even if Bynon is eventually acquitted.
Multiple families have filed lawsuits in Houston civil court. They’re desperate to know if their loved ones died because of what Bynon allegedly did. Those cases are still pending, which means more years of uncertainty and pain for families who’ve already lost so much.
Trust as a Medical Necessity
U.S. Attorney Nicholas J. Ganjei put it plainly in his statement: “Dr. Bynon is alleged to have betrayed the most sacred duty of a medical professional, to heal.” He added that Bynon “stole years and hope from those who trusted him most.”
That word, trust, keeps coming up. Because what else do patients have when they’re lying in a hospital bed waiting for a new liver? They can’t audit their own medical records. They can’t verify that their doctor is entering accurate information into transplant databases. They have no choice but to trust that the medical professionals caring for them are acting in their best interest.
Each count against Bynon carries a potential five-year prison sentence. But no sentence can give back the time those patients lost or restore the hope their families held onto while watching them deteriorate.
What happens to the practice of medicine when the people who are supposed to save lives become the ones who allegedly take them away?
