Medical board pulls doctor’s license

By Marshall Allen (contact)

Wednesday, July 29, 2009 | 2 a.m.

Medical authorities took the uncharacteristically aggressive tack Tuesday of suspending the license of Dr. Sean Su before concluding their investigation of him, citing the immediate danger he posed after two botched procedures and an ongoing refusal to participate in its investigation.

In announcing its decision against Su, the Nevada State Medical Examiners Board cited a breast augmentation that left the patient infected and scarred and the implant protruding from the incision, and a laser liposuction procedure that resulted in the scarring of the patient’s face.

Su, a family doctor, did not return calls for comment.

The medical board’s action comes more than three weeks after the State Health Division ordered Su to stop performing surgeries in his medical office after it found him allegedly running an unlicensed and unsafe surgery center and using expired medicines.

Su did not cooperate with the medical board’s investigation and provided what appeared to be falsified records, according to the medical board’s findings. One source told the Sun that he ran away from investigators who had gone to his office.

The medical board’s ongoing investigation “gives rise to serious and substantial concerns regarding Dr. Su’s competence and ability to safely serve patients in Nevada,” the order said.

The action comes two days after the Sun published a story questioning why it was taking the medical board so long to act on Su, given the Health Division actions against him.

In the past three weeks the medical board has been working on its investigation as quickly as possible, said Louis Ling, the board’s executive director.

According to the board’s suspension order, Su performed an eight-hour breast augmentation procedure April 16 in his Skin & Body Institute clinic on a patient who had won the surgery through her health club. Su used only local anesthesia, which faded in effectiveness, causing the patient pain.

Su failed to provide a space large enough to accommodate the breast implant, and on June 3 the patient returned to Su’s office. Her right implant was protruding through the original incision. Su performed a repair surgery, again in his office under local anesthetic. He reinserted the implant, which was still too large for the pocket he had created, the medical board said.

On June 15 the patient was admitted to Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center with an infection in her right breast. Surgeons who removed the implant noted that Su’s incisions — about 10 centimeters each — were about five times longer than they should have been. The incision on the right breast was “jagged and uneven,” the order said, and at the time the patient came for surgery, the implant protruded from the incision made by Su.

The surgeons also discovered a mass of sutures that Su had apparently left along the patient’s chest wall. They removed the sutures.

Su’s lack of cooperation with the medical board’s investigation raises “substantial concerns regarding (his) trustworthiness” and the concern that records will be altered or destroyed, according to the order, which was delivered to Su on Tuesday.

Assemblywoman Sheila Leslie, D-Reno, said it took too long for the medical board to suspend Su’s license.

“Reading the health division’s report, it’s clear that patients have been at risk these past three weeks, and I find that very disturbing,” Leslie said.

Leslie complained that the medical board protects the interests of doctors more than those of patients, and should have suspended Su’s license immediately.

Ling said the medical board handled Su’s case as quickly as it could, and that when new laws go into effect in October, it will be much quicker to respond.