Surgery Scandals and Parents Weekend

That was when I was removing something from a patient's face, and he told me it hurt more than getting shot. Oh, my goodness. Yeah, that'll.

That'll do it.

Yeah, that'll. It'll knock your confidence a little bit.

Hi, everybody, and welcome to the podcast. This is Generations md. My name is Stephanie, and I'm joined here by my colleague, Dr. Sarah Davis, who's also my mother. So welcome to Houston. Welcome to Parents Weekend.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Glad to be here.

You know, even in medical school, school, we're still having parents Weekend, so. Never ends.

Yay.

Your parents will always stay around.

Yeah. They'll have it for residency, too, Right, Right, of course.

And, you know, my first hospital job.

Oh, yeah, yeah. You know, you'll have to have a day, and you can walk around and see what you do every day. Right.

Come into the. Or see me scrubbing.

That's right. And then if you have any problems with any bosses, colleagues, you know, then I'll just kind of give them a call.

It is kind of funny that, like, even in college, did y' all have, like, parents stays back in the day?

We did. We had, like. Well, I don't remember if there was, like, a school wide thing. I know our sorority had, like, a Mom's Day and a Dad's Day, but they didn't actually do, like, a whole parents Day.

Well, that was probably best for you. Sorry. Her parents are divorced.

Yeah, right. See, So. I know. So those things are a little bit tricky for, you know. I mean, there's lots of blended families. Right. I don't know. Of course. Well, anyway, yeah, so they did do that, but it was more. It wasn't really about seeing the school. It was like just having your mom there. And, like, I remember we went to the horse races, so they had a bus come, and then all the girls and all their moms got on the bus, and you go to the horse races and, like, have lunch and, you know, it was a fun. A fun thing to do.

Yeah. Well, we had. The reason why they're here in Houston visiting is because we had, like, a family day at my medical school, which was kind of funny.

Well, right. We. We had low expectations for the whole thing.

Also. I organized the whole thing.

So again, we had low expectations. My God. Oh, my God.

It was, like, through the organization that I'm, like, a part of. So. Yeah, it was. We, like, organized it. And I also didn't really know exactly what to expect, but it was great.

Much better. Better than we expected. I mean, it Was. It was. It was a fun thing. What I thought it was gonna be and what dad thought it was gonna be was just walking around, having them, like, point out things in the hospital. Wow. This is the emergency room over here. And here's the operating here. These are patient beds. They'll rotate through here. And we kind of thought like, okay, that's going to be painful. But it really. It wasn't like that. We had some. We had, you know, a couple of good speakers at the beginning, and then we got to see what. What was the very best thing was your. This stimulation stimulate. Please scratch. No, that's too good.

It was not a stimulation lab, everyone. They did not take us to a stimulation.

The word is simulation. Simulation.

We do simulation labs in medical school.

So they had this thing where you could practice suturing on, like a, you know, a fake arm. And they had things where you could practice doing cpr, but which, of course, you have those CPR dummies when you do CPR classes, but you never get any, like, real feedback about how your compressions are. And these things had it so that it would say, like, okay, yes, your compressions are good. And then they told you, like, what percentage of your compressions were good. I did it one time and then it was like 4%. Yeah.

Then there was definitely some. Some gunner parents over there trying to get a high score on the CPR.

And a few people that had dead babies.

Yes, that did happen as well. No, but it was funny. I kind of thought it was going to. Is more tailored towards people who didn't have health care parents and they didn't really know what was going on. So my dad was not happy about having to go back to medical school. And at the beginning when the speakers were talking, they're like, oh, we're going to show you what it's like the day of a life of a med student. And I'll insert some pictures here for the clips on TikTok. But. So this was my dad at the beginning when they were saying, we're going to walk you through the day in the life of a med student. And he is not happy. He is grumpy, he's upset. Then when they took us to the simulation lab, then he gets into it, he's like, oh, wow, this is cool. I. You can put a trach in. They took us into the, like, the fake or. And they have these mannequins. And these mannequins are like $50,000 mannequins.

They're amazing. They're.

Yeah, they like, they talk back to you, and they. Like, they have actual heartbeats that you can listen to with a stethoscope and.

Yeah, you can. They're. They're breathing. Their chest is moving up and down. Like, they're breathing. You can hear breaths and sounds in there.

And then. So my dad sees, like, a trach tube there to be able to intubate the patient. He's like, oh, let's do this. Like, he just grabs it and starts doing it.

Starts going.

And that's not what we were supposed to do. But then he got really into that. Then he was like, oh, wow, this is cool. Then we went over into the suture thing. The students were supposed to teach us to suture, but he kind of took it upon himself to go in there and suture.

To be fair, the students had learned how to suture like, 20 minutes before, so I think they needed a little bit of help. But, yeah.

Starts teaching all my friends how to suture and couldn't get them out of there. Yeah, we couldn't, so.

Yeah.

But definitely. I thought it was. I thought it was good.

Well, I thought it was really great. I mean, we just didn't have anything like that. So, I mean, it seems like that's something you could go. I mean, I don't know how often you can get in there and do that stuff, but, like, I mean, how nice to be able to, like, practice doing that so you at least have it down. Then when you're trying to do it on a real patient, I mean, obviously it's going to feel different, but at least you have the mechanics of how to put the needle in, how to tie a knot. That's just going to help a ton.

Yeah. I can't imagine doing that on a person for the first time.

It's not great. Yeah. Not great for the person. It's not great for the med student.

And everyone's watching you, and you're just trying to get it right. Yeah, that'd be tough.

Yeah, it's. It's not great. That's. You know, and then you get feedback from the patient. Like, that was when I was removing something from a patient's face, and he told me it hurt more than getting shot. Oh, my goodness. Yeah, that'll.

That'll do it.

Yeah, that'll. It'll knock your confidence a little bit. But we also got to chat with the president of your hospital. President? Hospital institution. Yeah. I mean, who was just awesome and, like, people were just very friendly. But to your point, it was not just for the Non medical people. The. The doctor parents showed up.

Oh, yeah, doctor parents showed up, guns out.

Yeah. Had some questions.

Yes. So, but, you know, that's what. That's what's expected.

Yeah. Oh, but then, of course, the really exciting part was going up to the roof.

Yes. So I don't know how we managed to make this happen, but they let us go up to the live flight on the roof of the hospital where the helicopters come in. And we. We get up there, it's, you know, like a group of. I don't know, like, there was like 30 of us all up there and parents and all. And then they said we were kind of looking at the helicopter and they're like, okay, well, we got to go get somebody now. And we're like, oh, God. Okay, so we got to get out of the way. And they're like, no, you. You guys can watch the helicopter take off.

So then they're like, just. Just get back against the wall. Yeah, yeah.

So then we're standing there. I got to see the helicopter go. And the people are. Those are the coolest people in the hospital for sure. Like, they're just walking around with their jumpsuit on. They're like, yeah, I just flew a helicopter and, like, pick somebody up, and now I'm just back here walking through the hospital.

Well, yeah. And so in the helicopter, you've got the pilot, and then you have, like two medical people. And so there they are, you know, like, and they say they have enough equipment in there. It's just like, it. They're in the emergency room, so they pick up this patient, and then they're doing all the stuff you would be doing in the emergency room, except in a little tiny space and up in the air.

Yeah. That is crazy. I just can't. Yeah. Maybe some of the coolest people in.

The world, they've got nerves much better than mine.

Yeah. Yeah. Can you imagine trying to, like, do anything in a helicopter?

You.

Can you imagine being in a helicopter?

I can't even get in the helicopter. That kind of gives me anxiety just thinking about that. Yeah. I'd become the patient in the helicopter.

Yeah. That's definitely not. Not your. Not your role.

Yeah.

But, yeah, no, that was really. That was really cool. I. I don't know if through my years of education, I'm gonna ever even be able to go back up there.

I know. Well, I don't. I've never before. I mean, on all these years.

You're very old.

Very, very old. Well, and that's what one of your friends Asked me like, oh, you know, did you ever go up there? I was like, no. And to be honest, I never even really thought about it. It's like the, the patient, like I remember being in a little VA and having to life flight somebody off to the big university hospital and you know, they're just like, okay, take them away, roll them away. And then I was just like seeing the next patient never occurred to me to be like, well, where do they go?

Yeah, yeah, I guess, I mean, I guess there. They're just bringing people down. They're not bringing people up. Right, right to leave. But yeah, it's cool because I. There's. It's the busiest helipad in the world.

Oh, really? Is that what they said? Yeah.

And there's always helicopters flying by my place, so I got to see where they go.

Now, you know.

Now I know.

Yeah. So thumbs up to Parents Day.

Thumbs up to Parents Day.

I think it, again, it sounded kind of silly, but it was, it was a good experience. It's nice to be, you know, part of your kids lives. I mean, again, at some point this will have to end, this Parents Day thing, but not yet.

Other subjects for the podcast. You sent me an article to discuss. I didn't read it.

Okay, well then I'll tell you about it. Okay, so this was written by our buddy Will.

Friend of the pod.

Yes, Friend of the pod. Is that how we, what we call the previous podcast guest and just, you know, one of these articles about doctors behaving badly, which is a little bit depressing. But again, these things that just completely baffle me, like how does this person end up doing this? So this was. There's a plastic surgeon who's in South Lake, which is just outside of Dallas, who, you know, according to his cv, like I think supposedly went to med school at Harvard and maybe undergrad at MIT Again, I don't know, maybe there lies in that in this CV as well. But I don't know. I mean, Head had a, you know, a good career. Now he had gotten in trouble several different times with the board. This is. This stuff, by the way. I'm not like gossiping or anything. This is like public information. You can get on and check like if people have gotten in trouble with the Texas Medical Board. So once I'd heard about this story, I kind of got on there to sort of check the thing. He had had several times where he'd gotten in trouble with the board. When that happens, they don't necessarily tell you exactly what they did. So he was like on probation. So, like his, they. Sometimes they'll restrict your license for a little while. Sometimes they don't restrict your license. They let you keep practicing, but you have to do A, B, and C. And then if that's the case and you do everything you're supposed to do, then you can go on and practice medicine again. But one of the things that they had said was, like, he needed to have a chaperone in the room, like, forever, which makes you think, like, something went down, like a patient complained that he was inappropriate or something. But anyway. And then there was something also about prescribing controlled substances for family members. So, again, that's not great. It is pretty bad. I mean, those things are not, like, ethical gray areas. But he had a couple times where he had problems, and then he got. Then he obviously had resolved it, and then a while more went. But then he had a couple of more problems, and then it got to where they said, okay, yeah, your license is restricted. You cannot do surgery until we really evaluate this. Until you do all this stuff. And then, you know, and then we'll see whether we have to take your license or whether we'll give it back to you. Well, during that time when he was supposed to not be operating, he still. His plastic surgery clinic was still operating. And he had this other doctor there named Dr. Sue Susan Sosa. Dr. Sosa was evaluating the patients, kind of marking them up for surgery, telling them what kind of plastic surgery they were going to have, and then they would take them back into the surgical suite, which was all, like, attached to their office. They kind of had a whole surgery suite back there. So, again, it's one of those things that's, you know, you can have problems with that because you don't have a lot of other people coming in and out of there. It's just sort of reserved for your practice anyway, so he would. So this other guy would go back there, and then this nurse said that she would see that doctor, Dr. Sousa, wandering around the office while the patient was in surgery. And then there were times when they said, like, Dr. Sousa got called saying, oh, we're almost done here. Get the next patient ready to come back. Well, he's supposed to be the one doing the operation. So, you know, basically it kind of comes out that this guy who. His license was restricted, was not doing that. He was doing the surgeries and this other guy wasn't. But what's even crazier about that is the guy who was supposedly doing the surgeries, the ones who's marking him up saying, like, okay, I'm getting you ready for surgery. He wasn't a surgeon. He was an internal medicine doctor who has not any training in surgery. What. What I learned from this, which I'd never known before, is actually, it's not illegal and it's not even like, against the board, I guess, for you to practice outside of your scope of medicine. Wait, what? Well, it's just. It's not best practice.

Wait, so, like, if I was board certified in, like, OB GYN and I decided to perform an elective surgery, like, I could do that?

Apparently. So now your malpractice is not going to cover you to do that. It's like, you know, I mean, good lord, you're not trained to do it. Why would you be doing something you're not trained to do? It's. But, but again, apparently it's like, not against the law or anything, but I mean, it's crazy because plastic surgery residency, I mean, there's. You do like seven years of just doing all of these oper operations. It's not the type of thing that you could just sort of learn to do on the job.

So why were people agreeing to have surgery from this guy?

Well, that's a great question. I mean, they, they heavily marketed themselves. One of the ways they marketed was through social media. Influencers. Cancel them all.

The devil's amongst us.

Yeah, so they would, like, you know, these people had a big Instagram following and they would say, oh, hey, if you come and do pl. Surgery, will do your surgery for free if you post about it.

Yeah, that's a big. That is a really big thing. People go get like breast augmentations and stuff, and literally they get it for free. Like, their payment is through posting on social media.

Yeah, yeah. So, you know, like, it's smart marketing.

There are very successful plastic surgeons that have done that and.

Yeah, right, right. And it, you know, again, I mean, you have to get the word out about your practice. And so you're showing your successes and things. But, you know, and to be fair, like, I just wouldn't really think of. I mean, you just don't normally, like, you walk into. You. Okay, you've heard about this plastic surgeon. Somebody on social media was saying they're great. You walk in there, it's a whole plastic surgery office. Doctor comes in and introduces himself as doctor so. And so they do have a valid Texas license. You just don't. You really would not think of looking up, okay, what is their specialty?

No, I've, I mean, I've gone I've heard this before because I heard of somebody who wasn't actually kind of similar, not practicing in their specialty. And it is, like, kind of not a big process, but, like, you got to go to the right website of, like, the Texas medical boards, whatever, and go and search their name and, like, try to find the exact person. And, like, it's not an easy search to figure it out.

Yeah, yeah. It seems like there should be some easy way to authenticate that or say.

That you have to, like, have a sign in your office, like a. I don't know, I'm imagining, like, you know, how when you go to a restaurant, they have a grade A, B or C. Right.

Well, but, you know, if you're going to fake all this, you could easily fake a little printed sign. Okay. But the story is, it gets worse.

Oh, oh, okay.

If you can believe that, Dr. Souza, this internal medicine doctor who is claiming he's doing these surgeries, had been indicted and is now in federal prison not for that, but for Medicare fraud, for basically committing fraud against the federal government for, like, millions of dollars of, like, stuff that he billed for that he didn't do.

Oh, does that happen frequently?

I mean, I read about it on kind of a regular basis. I don't know how many. You know, the incidence is probably still quite small, but it certainly does happen.

Because I feel like if you put in a coat, like, it's not that hard. Right.

Well. And this is the type of thing that it's. This is like, egregious stuff. Like, you know, I mean, everybody worries about getting audited by Medicare because, you know, I mean. Right. If you really, really got in trouble, you can. You can go to prison, but they're not looking for people that, like, miscoded something. A lot of these in, like, this particular thing. I don't know all the details, but, you know, it was basically this telemed business where they were just ordering. They were ordering all of these tests that didn't need to be done unless you had the documentation of doing abrc. And so they were just making fake documentation so that they could get these tests paid for that didn't need to be done and then billing the federal government for that. But it's sort of like, it's like tax fraud. Like, everybody always worries, you know, like, oh, my God, I don't want to make a mistake on my taxes because, you know, you could go to prison. But really, they're not looking for people that just make a mistake. They're looking for people who are, like, you know, trying to defraud the government. So, you know, I would love to know, like, you know, again, like, how, how did these people, like have this downfall? What, what happened to them? You know, and you kind of think must have been that this other guy, the Internal Medicine Guy, Dr. Sosa was already in trouble for this Medicare stuff. I mean, probably had had some bad stuff happen before that. That's how he got into that situation. I don't know. But then he was sort of ripe for this other guy who was like, well, I want to still do these surgeries, but I need somebody to be the face of it, so will you come and do this? And he's like, well, you know, I got nothing to lose at this point.

Going to prison.

Well, he was already going to prison for the other thing. Oh, like he was, while he was doing these surgeries, he was like, had already like been in trouble. And sometimes these people would come in for their follow ups from the surgery and he was like going to court for the Medicare thing. And so they were. And the office was like, oh, he got called out for a family emergency. And then eventually he did get taken to prison. And these patients were still coming in saying, like, I'm having trouble, I'm having complications from my surgery. And they're like, oh, yeah, he's not here right now. And then the patients find out, oh, he's not here because he's in prison.

Wow. Yeah. If I'm about to go to prison, I'm not spending my last six months in the or. Are you kidding me? Like, I guess, I guess if you're on house arrest, there's nothing much you could do.

I don't know. I don't know.

I guess like, okay, maybe if you're about to go to prison and I guess you want to rake up some money for your family.

I guess, I don't know. I don't know. But again, like, how did, how are you going along? You were a doctor, you did all this stuff, like you're doing right? You're working so hard and blah, blah. And then like, you just keep going down, down, down. I mean, I have to think that people have like a drug problem or, you know, like, I don't. I again, I don't. I don't. Hi, Bruce. Hi. Hi.

We have a guest here.

He really wants to be on the pod.

Yeah, you already had your, you had your debut already.

But the, and then the other thing is like the. So the plastic surgeon as well, again, I don't know exactly how, why he Got in trouble. But, you know, he, he wasn't necessarily going to lose his medical license if he had just done the things he was supposed to do, but he just kept operating even when his license was like being restricted. And so, and so then because of that, he totally lost his medical license. And now he's in law school. So maybe that's where he belongs.

Wait, that is hilarious that he's in law school. Like, what, now he's going and what's. What's the plan?

Well, I don't know, but the. One of the things that is. Oh, let me see if I can find this. The.

I thought I heard maybe heard some residents talking about this in the hospital because they were talking about some sort of court case and they were looking, they were like reading through some documents and apparently, like, I don't know if I, I don't know exactly if they were talking about this thing, but they were saying that he just lied about a lot of stuff on the cv. So it might have been this because also he said he was chief resident and that just wasn't true. And like all this other stuff that they were like, you can't just lie about that.

Yeah, I kind of, I was skeptical also because I, I was looking for stuff about him online. There was one website, I found that where he listed supposedly where he went to medical school and undergrad and everything. And I was like, you know, and he said like the years that he was there. And I was like, hmm, I kind of want to fact checked that. Then I went back, I couldn't find it. But. But there was another website that was about him where it said he has degree. No, it didn't say degrees. It said he has like some sort of affiliation and just sort of name dropped a bunch of these prestigious institutions.

That is like, that drives me crazy. People do that all the time is they won't say that they have a degree from somewhere. They'll be like, oh yeah, like that, that Huberman guy was like, oh, I have a lab at Stanford. When, like it, like that was kind of true, but like, not fully. Like didn't have a degree from there. Like, didn't have like anything. Like the lab was like slightly like somebody who worked in the lab also had affiliation with Stanford.

Yes, yes, I've seen that before too. Or there's also like, you can go and like attend a CME at Harvard. You know, just like a little weekend class and you get this little certificate. And I've seen people do that where they're like, oh, he's Harvard educated. I'm like, for a weekend? That's not the same.

Fine. If I went to Harvard for a weekend, I'd put it on my cv.

Well, I'm sure you can do that if you would like to. But what was. So the other funny thing about this plastic surgeon, you know, the guy who's going to be a great lawyer someday, is that there was a little certificate that he got. And we got to put this like somewhere where people can look this up. It says the. The South Texas College of Law, Houston got for excellent achievement in the study of professional responsibility by the center for Computer Assisted Legal Instruction.

His ethics award.

His ethics award. The center for Computer Assisted Legal Instruction. That's, you know, that seems like a very prestigious award. I don't know. Maybe it is, maybe it is. But yeah, so that's, that's where he's headed now.

That's crazy, right?

I mean, but like, how did that happen? How? I don't know. You know, I guess maybe, of course I'm saying, like, oh yeah, maybe he had all of it. He obviously had some education. He was. Well, you know, now I don't even know if he truly was board certified in plastic surgery, but. So who knows? But still, still, I would say a big fall from grace. But I do, I just always wonder, you know, was it, is it drugs that happens to these people or how does, how do things go so far south?

Don't know.

Don't know. Hard to say.

Hard to say. All right guys, well, thanks for tuning in this week. Kind of a shorter episode, I guess.

Well, cuz Stephanie's going on spring break. Woohoo. Spring break.

Yeah, we do get a spring break. So I have that next week. So I guess I'll give a recap when we come back. But thank you guys so much for listening. You can follow us on Tick Tock and Instagram @GenerationsMD and if you have any questions or are interested in being a guest on the podcast, you can email us@askgenerations mdmail.com and we will talk to you next week. Bye guys.

Bye.