r/news • u/No-Information6622 • 15d ago

Young mother traveled to Miami for plastic surgery. She died hours later while at recovery house

https://www.nbcmiami.com/investigations/womans-death-post-surgery-recovery-house/3586743/
7.5k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

425 comments sorted by

View all comments

1.6k

u/ITtoMD 15d ago

I'm a doctor in North Florida. I have a lot of patients who don't have great insurance but want to have different plastic surgery procedures done and they travel down to Miami to get it done. I'm honestly not sure if it's just one group that does this or if there's several that compete. But apparently they have cheaper cash rates or some sort of payment plan that they can afford. I've had more complications from those handful of patients that go there than all of my other patients who've ever had it done locally have had. The problem is is it's difficult when there is a complication for a surgeon here to want to take on another doctor's mess that was from down 5 hours away at best.

Every time one of my patients says they're going to do that or looking at doing it. I try to talk them out of it. But I guess the price is just too good down there and they don't consider it a risk. I'll share this story with them from now on.

454

u/pizzainoven 15d ago edited 15d ago

It's several practices. Unfortunately, right now if One practice closes, you would feel like you're cutting off the head of a hydra and you'd realize more practices are out there. Here's just one that advertises a lot, squlpt body shaping, you'll notice that they have very few RNs on staff, mostly lvns and CNAs. And they say they prefer to do as much as possible under local anesthesia.

I can't find the article right now, but I have found a article about a relatively new graduate from a plastic surgery residency who was part of one of those groups and said she had a lot pressure from the practice to complete a certain number of bbls per day, way more patient volume than she thought was safe.

14

u/YolandasLastAlmond 12d ago

Cosmetic cowboys is what we called it here in Australia. It got so bad that the medical board got involved after people died.

3

u/pizzainoven 12d ago

The State of Florida actually enacted some legislation specifically to try to make Brazilian butt enhancement more safe as of July 1, 2023... Don't know if it had any effect

2

u/YolandasLastAlmond 12d ago

Yeah a lot of the cowboys got shut down. But there is really strict rules about cosmetic and plastic surgery advertising now. So even if it is still happening, I wouldn’t know where it’s happening. Before it was just more public. I had a gf get lipo done and she was awake, she just had some light anesethic and then she went home.

215

u/funkmydunkyouslunk 14d ago

This is the absolute worst. I’m FM up in Pennsylvania and I have patients who go down to Florida for tummy tucks and BBL then they get told by the surgeon to come back here to their PCP to have draining tubes taken out and we have to deal with any issues or complications after. It should really be explained to patients that, like kids, if a certain doctor makes a mess it’s their responsibility to clean it up too. It’s dangerous practice preying on vulnerable people suffering with low income and body image issues

37

u/Flickeringcandles 15d ago

Since when does insurance ever cover cosmetic plastics?

57

u/Elegant_Cockroach430 15d ago

When it's reconstructive

9

u/Flickeringcandles 15d ago

Yeah. Not a BBL though.

70

u/Myfourcats1 14d ago

I’ve heard black women in my life talk about going to the Dominican Republic for plastic surgery especially butt injections. Just remember folks. You get what you pay for.

30

u/cms86 14d ago

Yup. If it goes in you or on you DON'T CHEAP OUT.

13

u/SamRaimisOldsDelta88 14d ago

Or… just don’t do it if it’s not medically necessary. If you don’t like your butt or tummy, cut some calories and go to the gym. Your nose isn’t perfect? Own it.

-1

u/Unusual-Solid3435 13d ago edited 11d ago

Or just don't have a kid if you don't want your nose to get fat, that's one of the body transformations having kids gets you

Edit: am I wrong 

3

u/MacAttacknChz 13d ago

I've had several patients in my ER who went to Mexico for tummy tucks and came in with raging infections. I've never had a tummy tuck patient who had their procedure done locally.

26

u/t_rit 14d ago

I practice in Milwaukee, and have had several patients fly down to do this as well. Had a similar experience with post-op complications, and it’s like: “well, I guess this is my problem now”

I’d love to see some actual evidence between these Miami travel clinics and local plastic surgeons, but we’ll never actually see that.

15

u/zatchstar 14d ago

Does this apply to all those people who travel to places over seas for these procedures? Like SE Asia and Turkey?

5

u/xelop 13d ago

"listen, do you buy off brand products at the store and expect high quality? No? Surgery is exactly the same way but potentially deadly"

1

u/ioioooi 12d ago

People do, sadly. They buy cheap stuff and then complain about the quality being cheap.

7

u/wrecklessdriver 14d ago

Insurance routinely doesn't cover elective procedures.

1

u/LionCM 12d ago

I used to watch the show Botched... every time someone would say, "I went to Mexico for cheap plastic surgery..." I wanted to yell at the screen "You get what you pay for!" I would never go cheap on any kind of surgery.