Surviving family of patient who died in augmentation mammoplasty sues doctor, his clinic

A clinic does not lose its status and protections as a health care provider simply because its employees performed the acts causing a patient’s death in a manner falling beyond the scope of their licenses, a California court recently ruled.

In Divino Plastic Surgery, Inc. et al. v. The Superior Court of San Diego County, a doctor performed an augmentation mammoplasty in his surgical clinic. The patient went into cardiopulmonary arrest during the surgery, remained intubated and unresponsive for about six weeks, then died.

In 2019, the patient’s surviving family members filed a complaint seeking damages from the clinic, the doctor, and the registered nurse who assisted during the surgery. The survivors alleged the following:

• The doctor told the patient that a licensed anesthesiologist would be there during the procedure to administer the anesthesia and to monitor her;
• The doctor and the nurse were the ones who actually administered multiple anesthetics despite lacking the license to do so;
• They failed to monitor the patient during the procedure;
• Although they performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation on the patient for around three hours without her consent, she never regained consciousness before her death.

In 2021, the survivors told the court that they wanted to amend their complaint by including a request for punitive damages and by adding certain factual allegations, including that...

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