A Colorado plastic surgeon was recently sentenced to 15 days in jail, 120 days of public service and two years of probation over the death of teenaged patient.
According to CBS News, Geoffrey Kim will serve his jail sentence at Arapahoe County Jail. His community service will be served in a long-term care facility for those who have suffered brain injuries and he’ll pay a $15,000 fine, said the outlet.
Kim performed a breast augmentation surgery on 18-year-old Emmalyn Nguyen on Aug. 1, 2019 in Greenwood Village, Colo. After her anesthesia was administered, he teen went into cardiac arrest. Although Kim administered CPR, he was not able to revive Nguyen.
“Each year in the United States, anesthesia/anesthetics are reported as the underlying cause in approximately 34 deaths and contributing factors in another 281 deaths, with excess mortality risk in the elderly and men,” said a study published in 2009.
“Anesthesia-contributory cardiac arrest occurred during all phases of the anesthesia, and mortality was 70%,” said another study from 2014.
After the patient went into cardiac arrest, Kim also failed to call 911 for approximately five hours, per Law & Crime, and two nurses testified that they requested permission to do so but were denied. Nguyen was left with a brain injury and could not walk or feed herself after the ordeal. She died 14 months later.
According to a 2018 report from the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS), plastic surgery among teens was already on the rise in part because of pressures associated with social media. In 2017, around 229,000 cosmetic procedures were performed on patients aged 13 to 19, according to research cited by the society.
“Board-certified plastic surgeons Rod J. Rohrich, M.D. and Min-Jeong Cho, M.D. of the Dallas Plastic Surgery Institute found that very few guidelines are in place to ensure teen plastic surgeries are performed appropriately,” said the report.
At that time, teens accounted for 4% of all cosmetic surgery procedures – mostly nose reshaping, male breast reduction and ear surgery.
“While a rhinoplasty or ear surgery can be performed safely by a board-certified surgeon and are, in many cases, appropriate for an adolescent, other cosmetic procedures such as breast augmentation, liposuction or injectables are typically not recommended for minors for several reasons, including lack of research,” said Rohrich. “It’s concerning that there has been a surge in the use of injectables in young patients to achieve augmented cheeks and lips when there is no evidence that these procedures are safe for adolescents.”
In Colorado, Kim was found guilty this June of attempted manslaughter. He also agreed to pay $1 million to Nguyen’s family as part of a wrongful death lawsuit. As part of a settlement, Kim will be allowed to continue to practice medicine. It requires him to inform patients in writing of his conviction.