DEAD WOMAN HAD SURGERY WITH MIAMI ‘BUTT LIFT’ DOCTOR ACCUSED OF MALPRACTICE
by
A South Florida doctor fighting the state’s effort to revoke his license on grounds of repeated medical malpractice is the surgeon whose patient died this week after he performed an undisclosed cosmetic procedure at a clinic in Doral, Miami-Dade police said Friday.
Osakatukei “Osak” Omulepu, 44, was performing surgery on a 30-year-old woman from Illinois when police records say she suddenly stopped breathing on Thursday — the same day that Florida’s First District Court of Appeal denied a request from the Department of Health to stop Omulepu from performing liposuction.
When police and paramedics arrived at the Doral office surgery clinic — called Seduction by Jardon Medical Center — they found Omulepu administering CPR to Lattia Baumeister, who had traveled to South Florida from her home about 150 miles outside of Chicago.
Baumeister was taken to Kendall Regional Medical Center, where she died in the emergency room, according to the police report.
“This is the first patient death he has had. Although what happened has been widely documented as a complication of the procedure the patient underwent, it is not a situation any surgeon wants to have.”
During liposuction, doctors use a metal rod called a cannula to remove fat through a surgical incision, plunging the instrument in and out of the patient’s body. According to health department complaints filed in previous cases of medical malpractice, Omulepu perforated the organs of two patients with a cannula on the same day, and he caused serious infections to two additional patients also while performing liposuction — all in May 2015.
State officials are not the only ones seeking to hold Omulepu accountable. In January, a patient filed a medical malpractice lawsuit in Miami-Dade circuit court alleging that Omulepu permanently disfigured her during two cosmetic surgeries in 2015 — a breast augmentation and a revision.
According to the suit, Rosmery Diaz of Miami began vomiting blood and feeling extreme pain shortly after the first surgery. She was also bleeding and her breasts began to spread outward, the complaint alleges.
Omulepu performed a second surgery on Diaz about four months later, according to the suit, but her condition did not improve.
The health department and the medical board have tried repeatedly to stop or restrict Omulepu’s ability to perform liposuction following the four patient injuries in May 2015.
In February 2016, state officials imposed an emergency restriction on the doctor’s license. The following month, the health department charged Omulepu with repeated medical malpractice. And in April, the medical board revoked Omulepu’s license after finding that he was negligent.
Each time, Omulepu has regained the right to practice medicine.
The appeals court denied the state’s request on Thursday, said Brad Dalton, a health department spokesman. Dalton said the state agency filed a second request to restrict Omulepu’s license on the same day
