Topic : 12/11 Plastic Surgery Nightmares

Which is why i've had my surgeries in Spain and Brazil. My hubby went to Mexico...and we have way better care than here. 

If someone comes in your room to take care of you and they don't wash hands etc...you NEED to speak up.  This is your health, your life...you have every right to be your own advocate and make sure you're getting good care.  If i had nurses come in on phones I'd ask for a supervisor or my dr.  That is not acceptable.

While I can have empathy for the women left disfigured they MUST take responsibility for their own nightmares!!!!!!!  Mortgage your house and then want a quick fix because of "time constraints".........get real.  Bigger boobs............you get what you pay for in your quest for "vanity"!  I am sick of people griping and complaining about what went wrong, when what is really wrong is changing our bodies in the first place.  Loosing 200 lbs is fantastic and wanting to get rid of the loose skin is understandable ........a strip mall plastic surgeon?? 

I am growing older perhaps not so gracefully but am doing it the way it was intended.....naturally!!

I so totally agree. I mean really why didnt these women research this man better and who in their right minds would go to a strip mall to have surgery. To me that is just nonsense. Any one with common sense would know to research and make sur whomever was going to be cutting on them was board certified and had lots of credentials at a reputable hospital. But then again these women talked to this man several times and they trusted (falsely) that they would be in good hands. However a warning sign should have been that his practice was in a mall. That should have been enough warning.  Most good reputable doctors will have their credentials where they can be seen and can be checked out.

This in no way excuses  this so called dr for butchering these women. He should not only lose his license to practice but he should be in jail.

I am not excusing the doctor in any way, but what has gone wrong with our society when women willingly risk their lives for vanity? Surgery should never be done just to try to improve looks, it should be for medical necessity. Shame on doctors, who, I believe, still have in their oath, "First, do no harm", for being willing to inject, cut, insert, vacuum out and other wise inflict trauma on the human body, for no other purpose than to supposedly improve looks.

Women, think, if someone is more interested in how your boobs, butt, or belly looks, than who you really are, then they are not worth your time and certainly not worth putting your life on the line to impress. Women struggled for years to change the idea that we are more than sex objects, only to turn around and act like our only value is in our looks. We worry about teenage girls who starve themselves and kill themselves because they don't measure up to some unrealistic ideal of female perfection, but what example do they have with their own mom's who are running around getting various body parts trimmed or inflated?

Reconstructive surgery has it's place. That would be to repair, or reconstruct an area of the body that has been damaged or to correct a serious birth defect that affects quality of life. Appearance only affects quality of life if you let it. 

Look your best by all means, but do it with what God gave you not what a surgeon does to you. 

I agree with you about the responsibility part. Too many people get into pickles and refuse to take responsibilty for their part in the mess (Graduation trips for the sole purpose of gettting drunk, marriage to a man with a bad, bad track record).

They should still have the right to legal recourse, I mean, what can a criminal like that say, "Ha, ha you trusted me?" Like that scene in Animal House?

We need to protect people against doctors such as this strip mall surgeon.  What is wrong with the California Department of Health?  Why do they allow a man to practice in this manner?  Are there no regulations about the amount of time spent under anesthesia in a same day surgery?  A person under anesthesia for long periods of time can require oxygen for a period of time.  They need to be monitored.  WHO is monitoring those who are supposed to be caring for us?  When a patient is not taken seriously when they complain of post op pain years after a surgery, only to have another surgeon find a sponge in their body- who is monitoring this?  Wake up California DOH!! 

I have seen first hand a number of botched breasts surgeries, including one where the breast implant slid down her chest from exercise. 

The scaring is bad, but the women need to seek some kind of mental help so they do not drive their families away.  If their husbands are their true loves, then scars will not matter.  The more self-conscious they are not letting their husbands close to them, the bigger the risk of infidelity or divorce.

My mother had 25 surgeries in her life and was scared all over, but she and my father have been married 60 years mainly because my mother took it as a part of life.  Her C-section scars from 2 kids looked almost as bad as the lady with the tummy tuck.  The scars run from her breast bone to her bikini line.  It was a lot different in the early 50's than it is today.

It is the customer base/patient base that is driving the standards of care down.  Like the doctor on the show explained, HE would never do such a surgery in one session and certainly would do it in an inpatient setting, but there are PLENTY that do not.  This is how they keep the cost down, and that is what this "new" customer base is striving for.  Unfortunately, that affects the standards of care for EVERYONE.  Specifically, I see Dr. West as an example of being a victim of this--I certainly do not think that she was looking for a "deal" on her plastic surgery, but rather she had confidence and respect for Dr. Adams from his representation in public and so she probably didn't know to think that his location was suspect.  I'm sure she probably said "this is strange," but blew that instinct off because of the comfort level she felt beccause of the public persona.

As a RN and professional, I even had my surgery at a "stand alone facility" that was basically no better than a strip mall--but I knew the hospital I worked at was 3 minutes down the street and the doctor who was operating on me also worked out of that facility.  I actually saw the facility as a benefit because they only saw elective procedures there, they had no cases come through their operating room with existing infections--nosocomial (hospital aquired) infections are the #1 most common complication of any surgery.  So there are benefits to it.

I had an 8 hour surgery for the tummy tuck, and then remember being hoisted off the operating table and into a wheelchair, wheeled down a hall and out the back door to my husband who lifted me into our vehichle.  They slipped an anti-nausea medication under my tongue and we drove one hour home--the worst drive of my life.  The anesthesiologist purposely left me a little "sedated" in order to "get me through" the drive period.  Again NOT the way to ever ever ever want to do a tummy tuck.  (Thank goodness I at least had paid extra for the localized pain medication delivery system in the drains for that first day--it totally helped for the incision site pain.  I would not have gotten through it.)

I think Dr Phil can relate to the experience by thinking about his prole in Scary Movie #3 where he sawed his own foot off--that is about how it feels.

But this is common nowadays.  What sounds barbaric for an elective procedure, is routine in other procedures (hysterectomy was the same way--wake up, pop in wheelchair, as soon as you can pee--you are "free")  I really WANTED to be admitted for that surgery, but --no.  So it is not just plastics that is like this.