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Patient Dies Following Cosmetic Surgery

June 13th, 2017 Health & Medicine 2 minute read
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Patient Dies Following Cosmetic Surgery

44-year-old Oskatukei "Osak" Omulepu has been ordered by a Florida court to stop performing plastic surgery following a procedure which led to the death of an Illinois woman.  He must have a board certified physician present for any other medical procedures performed until the court rules on the state's efforts to stop the doctor from practicing.  Lattia Baumeister, a 30-year-old patient of Omulepu's died on June 1st of fat clots found in her lungs from liposuction and fat transfer surgery. The patient suddenly stopped breathing in the middle of the liposuction procedure. Paramedics arrived at the scene to find Omulepu performing CPR on Baumeister, who had traveled approximately 150 miles to his South Florida office. She was immediately taken to Kendall Regional Medical Center, but medical personnel could not revive her.

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However, not everyone believes the court should be so accommodating.  Palm Beach dermatologist Steven Rosenberg said he is extremely frustrated with delays in revoking Omulepu's license.  “We revoke a doctor’s license and the judges override it,” Rosenberg said. "We spend so much time preparing for these cases, listening to them. We’re doing a service to try and protect the public and then a judge basically allows the physician to continue to practice.” Omulepu’s medical license on file with the Florida health department is currently listed as “clear/active". Rosenberg explains further, “There is no basis for finding that he is unsafe to continue to perform liposuction pending the appeal when he has been practicing and doing this procedure for many months since these injuries occurred without having these complications recur. Everybody on the board finds this particularly frustrating.”

Sources:

Florida Court Orders Doctor to Stop Performing SurgeryAfter patient death, court orders Miami ‘butt lift’ doctor to stop performing surgery
Sara E. Teller

About Sara E. Teller

Sara is a credited freelance writer, editor, contributor, and essayist, as well as a novelist and poet with nearly twenty years of experience. A seasoned publishing professional, she's worked for newspapers, magazines and book publishers in content digitization, editorial, acquisitions and intellectual property. Sara has been an invited speaker at a Careers in Publishing & Authorship event at Michigan State University and a Reading and Writing Instructor at Sylvan Learning Center. She has an MBA degree with a concentration in Marketing and an MA in Clinical Mental Health Counseling, graduating with a 4.2/4.0 GPA. She is also a member of Chi Sigma Iota and a 2020 recipient of the Donald D. Davis scholarship recognizing social responsibility. Sara is certified in children's book writing, HTML coding and social media marketing. Her fifth book, PTSD: Healing from the Inside Out, was released in September 2019 and is available on Amazon. You can find her others books there, too, including Narcissistic Abuse: A Survival Guide, released in December 2017.

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