North Carolina, US – 27th July, 2018: A Huntersville cosmetic surgeon is still allowed to perform surgeries even though the medical board punished him saying he gave patients potentially dangerous levels of anesthesia.
The North Carolina medical board reprimanded the owner of Pure Med Spa for that and concerns over how he handled a patient’s death certificate after she died in his office.
“I was really shocked but not surprised,” said Dr. Theo Nyame.
He’s a Harvard med school educated plastic surgeon at Charlotte Plastic Surgery.
He was shocked to hear what Huntersville Dr. Briggs Cook did.
The North Carolina Medical Board officially reprimanded the owner of Pure Med Spa in a consent order.
It said, among other things, Cook gave patients potentially fatal doses of anesthesia, performed surgery when he shouldn’t have and listed “natural causes” on the death certificate when one of his patients died in his care without requesting an autopsy.
The North Carolina Medical Board consent order looked at how Dr. Cook cared for four patients and found in each case he provided “below standard” care even performing a face and neck lift the same day one patient first came to him. And the consent order says “Dr. Cook failed to provide proper anesthesia.”
We asked Dr. Nyame to review the consent order. He told us when he performs plastic surgery, he doesn’t administer the anesthesia, an anesthesiologist does.
“There have been cases where surgeons try to cut corners- perform anesthesia while performing surgery and that has lead to disastrous complications," Dr. Nyame said.
In the consent order, the board noted that when one of his patients died in his office, Dr. Cook himself signed the death certificate, saying it was a heart attack never sending the patient for an autopsy.
The board notes “this cause could not have been ascertained by Dr. Cook and he should have requested an autopsy.”
A North Carolina Medical Board spokeswoman told us a death like this would: “Typically at least raise the question of whether the death was the result of a medical error or substandard practice. For that reason, such a case arguably could be/should be referred to the medical examiner for autopsy to determine the cause of death. Obviously, that was not done in this case.”
We ran into a woman considering using Pure Med Spa’s services and told her about the consent order.
She told us, “Oh, that’s pretty scary; that’s not good.”
And yet the medical board ruled Cook is allowed to continue to perform cosmetic surgeries though if they require sedation he can no longer do them at his office they have to be done in a hospital setting.
When we called the board for comment on that, the spokeswoman told us “he was doing cosmetic procedures badly and he can’t do that anymore.”
According to the consent order – Dr. Cook understood the order and entered into it voluntarily.
We tried getting comment from Dr. Cook we called a dozen times over the last month and even went to his office to try to talk to him a receptionist told us “he's at the hospital performing surgery all week.”
When we read the consent order to that prospective patient we ran into outside, she was concerned about what the medical board had to say.
“It doesn’t make me feel very good, not very confident," she said.
If you’re planning plastic surgery, check the medical board website for a doctor's certifications, ask the doctor about their training and how many times they’ve done a specific procedure – and you can also get a second opinion – even ask that second doctor what he thinks of the one you’re considering going with.
Source: https://www.wcnc.com/article/news/huntersville-cosmetic-surgeon-sanctioned-by-nc-medical-board/275-578055506