A Miami doctor denies that he put blood with plastic beads into a liposuction patient
A Miami plastic surgeon has been accused of injecting blood contaminated with plastic into a liposuction patient. The doctor’s attorney says that didn’t happen, and the complaining patient is upset over a refund not given for a Brazilian butt lift not done.
What’s definite is 305 Plastic Surgery’s Dr. Karl William Schwarz — Dr. William Schwarz on the office surgery center’s website — has agreed to pay a $7,500 fine, up to $6,196 in case costs, take a five-hour continuing medical education course in risk management and a three-hour course in medical recordkeeping. A letter of concern also will be filed against Schwarz’s license.
That’s in the proposed settlement agreement that the state Board of Medicine will or won’t approve during its Aug. 4 meeting. The Public Book for that meeting, posted on the board website, includes that proposed settlement as well the Florida Department of Health administrative complaint and the Schwarz’s response via attorney Gregory Chaires.
After Chaires gives a long denial of the blood accusation, he writes, “as Dr. Schwarz wishes to put this matter behind him so that he may return his complete focus to his patients and family, he has decided to enter into the proposed settlement agreement.”
Schwarz hasn’t faced any discipline since becoming licensed in Florida on June 28, 2017. The American Board of Plastic Surgery says he’s been board certified since Nov. 11, 2017.
READ MORE: Miami plastic surgeon fined for ignoring patient having post-liposuction problems
A liposuction done, a BBL not done in Miami
The Florida Department of Health administrative complaint says patient “S.H.” went to 305 Plastic Surgery, 564 SW 42nd Ave., on Jan. 26, 2021, so Schwarz could perform a liposuction with fat transfer and cell saver.
A Brazilian Butt Lift or “BBL” is a liposuction procedure in which fat is sucked from part of the body and injected into the buttocks. The complaint describes the cell saver procedure as a blood transfer that “involves recovering blood lost during surgery and re-infusion into the patient.”
Chaires letter said the 34-year-old woman was there for 360 liposuction (abdomen, waist, mid back, lower back, “love handles”) and BBL, both of which she had done by a different surgeon on Nov. 21, 2019.
The complaint said Schwarz told “S.H.” he did the liposuction and the cell saver, but not the fat transfer “due to the discovery of small beads of plastic during the liposuction procedure.”
But, the complaint also claimed that Schwarz, in doing the cell saver re-injection, injected blood “that was recovered from the liposuction procedure after discovering plastic beads in the tissue removed from S.H.”
Also, Schwarz, the complaint alleges, “noted in S.H.’s operative report that (he) injected 990 cc of fat into each of S.H.’s buttocks, though he had failed to inject any fat into either one of S.H.’s buttocks.”
Chaires letter says Schwarz did find hard “spherical, pea-sized objects” that kept clogging the fat-sucking cannula when he performed the liposuction on S.H.’s back area. But, the presence of those objects and patient safety were exactly why Schwarz didn’t inject that fat into S.H.’s buttocks. And, the cell saver procedure actually is done by the anesthesiologist, Chaires wrote, who had only material from S.H.’s front.
Chaires said the department’s reviewing physician, Dr. Byron “Pat” Pazmino “critically misunderstood the events that occurred” during the surgery.
“The administrative complaint is framed upon the opinion by Dr. Pazmino, which incorrectly represents events that did not occur, namely the alleged injection/transfusion of red blood cells into the patient that were mixed with lipoaspirate contaminated with foreign bodies,” Chaires letter said. “The patient only received aspirate from the front of her body, which was obtained prior to and apart from the back of her body where the foreign bodies were identified.”
Chaires letter says S.H. came back the next day and “was healing well and was without complaint.”
It also says, however, that she “was upset because she was not given a refund” for the butt lift not done.
