What happened to this woman illustrates two major points. First, there are severe complications for even the simplest surgery, and therefore everybody should be wary of getting any procedure they don’t absolutely need. Second, there’s no limit to the lengths fellow physicians will go to protect their own and their profession. The medical mafia is alive and well in this country, and it’s sad that even in an obvious case where the physician apologized and agreed to pay for corrective surgery, that someone would jump on here and try to defend this so called “doctor.” People who try to protect poor practitioners are only making it more likely for patients to avoid elective procedures altogether. If the climate out there is such that even a blatant case of malpractice is defended as an outcome that is simply unsatisfactory to the patient and not really a genuine medical error, the only conclusion to make is that conspiracy is alive and well in medicine. Why should anyone take the chance of being scarred for life if there is no recourse for correcting mistakes and calling those who mauled you to account when things go wrong? Deny, deny, deny. That’s the new way. Kim’s story represents a huge problem in the medical industry. Doctors these days care more about themselves and lining their pockets than they do about their patients. It is getting harder and harder to find the few who buck that trend. Hopefully she will become one of the elite who strive for better than the status quo.

All one may conclude from the story is that a bad outcome occurred, comprising a known risk of laser surgery. It appears to me that the dermatologist mentioned sold her soul in this circumstance. I couldn’t sleep at night, especially if it had been my fault. Taking care of the problem was definitely the right thing to do, being deceitful was not.

I would probably buy a billboard near the dermatologist’s office to better educate the public on the risks of such procedures, featuring my before and after mugshot, just like the dermatologist has in her office showing only her most successful outcomes.

I think you are confused about the situation. Who are you upset with? You are treating Kim as a litigious patient that is scamming the system, even though she never filed a lawsuit against the doctor and she won’t even divulge the doctor’s identity in order to protect the doctor’s reputation.

The truth of the matter is that many patients would have filed a lawsuit in this case even if malpractice had not occurred. The average defense cost in a malpractice trial is in the neighborhood of $15,000 (much greater than $1400 operation) and it would have been in the insurance company’s best interest to settle out of court. She took the high road and did not go after the doctor. Why are you upset with her?

“And while no one wants to go around feeling marked by misfortune, there probably should be a point where the initial treating physician ought to be able to stop voluntarily paying for additional surgery.”

The thing that confuses me, though, is that she made the initial appointment for me to meet with the surgeon in Pittsburgh (before the statue of limitations) to schedule a surgery to bring my left upper lip down to make it more symmetrical – and gave me all indications that she would continue to cover my care until I looked as normal as possible. Or as close to what I looked like before the laser treatment, anyway. (This is always what she promised me, incidentally – I didn’t demand the plastic surgeon visits, the cortisone injections, etc. – they were her idea. She offered them immediately, when she saw my giant swollen face.) But then, when the four-year statue had passed (between my consultation with the surgeon and the actual surgery) her lawyer sent the letter and she refused to pay. And by that time, there was absolutely no legal action to be taken (I just wanted the $1400 surgery covered – it wasn’t easy for my family to afford. I wasn’t looking to make millions.) That’s what makes me think there’s something wrong there.

Y’all, I was just trying to tell my story – chronicle it on my blog so that I would always remember the details. I didn’t expect to draw this much vitriol from some people – especially if those of you who are so critical of me are physicians, who are supposed to be caring healers. I was 18 years old, I believed my doctor, I ended up horribly burnt with a scar. I don’t see how that’s my fault.

Doesn’t the fact that procedure hurt badly a reasonable indicator that there was some error in the settings? This article states that excessive pain should be brought immediately to the attention of technician so that the settings can be adjusted. Kim, did you bring up your eccessive pain right away? Surely, if this was the case doctor had to adjust settings immediately?

I know that I had hardly any discomfort from laser hair removal, and that without any kind of numbing cream. My doctor used GentleLase.

Is miss Kim scamming us again? First it was a photo of dubious ‘before’ veracity, and now she is quoting the consent document “scarring, death, etc.” Did it really say what you have in quotes or are you paraphrasing. I cannot believe any written consent would have an ‘etc.’ in it.

Yes, scary things are written into the consent document. That is not because you are supposed to ignore them with the flippant giggle of a petulant teen, it is because you are to heed them. When we say death can happen, it doesn’t mean a little bit dead, or something like dead but not quite, it means real dead.

And again, you have not remotely supported an ascertation of malpractice with any rational theory other than to remark that the physician was just a little too nice following an untoward event. Just what is the take home message for physicians? When the patient is hurt turn a cold shoulder? I was never more ignorant about being a physician than when I was a young medical student. I don’t expect Kim to understand that one can retain a shred of compassion with untoward events where most just cower. Would you really rather have had this doc be a cold bastard to you all those years ago just so you could have a case pending in court? Very likely you had a decent human being taking care of you then. Would you now go to a doc who had posted in the reception desk a sign that said ‘Patients with complications need not return’?