Florida MedSpa Doctor's License Suspended

WESTON, Fla., March 8, 2010— -- The doctor who performed liposuction on a now-deceased Florida woman at a local spa had his license suspended and was called "an immediate danger to the public."

Rohie Kah-Orukotan, a 37-year-old mother of three went into the Weston MedSpa in Weston, Fla., Sept. 25, 2009, for a liposuction procedure. Something went horribly wrong on the operating table. Kah-Orukotan suffered seizures and was rushed to a nearby hospital where she was pronounced brain dead.

Joseph Orukotan says his wife didn't have to die.

"Doctors are supposed to save a life, not take it," he said. "It's a very, very painful experience. It's just an experience that has no end. It's going to remain with me for the rest of my life."

After two weeks, Orukotan was forced to make the heartbreaking decision to take his wife off life support. "I felt like I killed my own wife," he said. "And it was even harder when I had to explain to the kids."

Orukotan's family can't understand how the registered nurse could have trusted her life at a spa that she frequented for massages and manicures and doubles as a tanning salon. Nor can they understand how for more than five months after the tragedy, her doctor, Omar Brito, was still performing cosmetic procedures.

Last week, the state's surgeon general suspended Brito's license and accused him of medical malpractice. An explosive emergency order said that Rohie Kah-Orukotan had excessive levels of lidocaine in her system, had been given the powerful sedation drug propofol with no anesthesiologist present, and that Brito had "inadequate training."

It says Brito took a three-day course in plastic surgery which totaled just 18 hours of training.

"The conduct in this case from beginning to end was unequivocally outrageous," said Orukotan's lawyer Michael Freedland. "His training was inadequate, the facility was inadequate, the specialists they didn't have available in terms of the anesthesia that was used was outrageous…And they had none of the requisite emergency resources available to them to handle an emergency should one arise."

Also, the order says a crash cart was not present at the spa during Kah-Orukotan's procedure.

Brito's criminal defense attorney Brian Beiber said they sharply disagree with the board's findings, and that the procedure involved minor sedation and could be legally done at the med spa. He also claims the state has incorrect information about the amount of anesthesia and when it was given.

Toxicology reports that will state the exact cause of death have not yet been released.