Reporters: Horrific Revelations of Bad Plastic Surgery Practice

Plastic surgery is nothing new in the medical world. Millions of men and women have turned to voluntary surgery to improve their looks, going under the knife for procedures like breast augmentation, tummy tucks, and Brazilian butt lifts. A great majority of these surgeries are performed by board-certified plastic surgeons with thousands of hours experience performing these procedures. These surgeries are often expensive and not covered by insurance, leaving patients having to pay for the surgeries themselves. Many offer finance options or payment agreements. However, for one clinic in Florida, news that eight patients have died in their plastic surgery clinics is prompting numerous lawsuits as Naples Daily News reports.

An investigation by the Naples Daily News and USA Today revealed that although the clinics look like many same-day surgery clinics, they are staffed by doctors who treat patients like an assembly line. Many of these doctors have little-specialized training and may perform procedures on as many as eight patients per day.

The Jolie Plastic Surgery Clinic, headed by Dr. Ismael Labrador, has a clinic in Miami and another location in Florida. Together, these clinics are responsible for 1 in 5 plastic surgery deaths in the state. Eight women have died from complications during their procedures in the past six years.

A dozen more patients were left with life-threatening complications such as perforated organs.

Since 2016, the name of the clinic has changed three times, something that attorneys argue shields Dr. Labrador from litigation.

So far, 69 complaints against the clinics have been filed with the attorney general demanding refunds for procedures that did not go as planned or provide the expected results.

The doctors that Dr. Labrador hired were not board certified in plastic surgery and were paid on commission. The more surgeries they performed, the more they were paid.