New Law Imposes Restrictions on Florida’s Most Popular Cosmetic Surgery
Cosmetic surgery is as much a part of the lifestyle in Florida as key lime pie and Christmastime walks on the beach. People from all over the country, and all over the world, travel to the place where it’s always sunny and no one judges you for having a flat butt as long as you make a sincere effort to fix it. Floridians of a certain age (although you would never know it from looking, since they have had some work done) remember a time when cosmetic surgeons advertised on TV, their former patients displaying their flawless swimsuit figures during commercial breaks between segments of The Jerry Springer Show. Today, cosmetic surgeons advertise on Tik Tok, and the public’s appreciation for a big booty has increased since the heyday of daytime talk shows. All of this created a perfect storm for the Brazilian Butt Lift industry, with clinics in Florida performing the procedure on a high-volume basis, sometimes with disastrous consequences. After too many catastrophic errors led to death or serious injury, Florida has implemented a new law setting more specific guidelines for how doctors must perform the procedure. If you have suffered permanent disability because of preventable complications from a cosmetic procedure, contact a Jacksonville catastrophic injury lawyer.
The Brazilian Butt Lift Just Got a Little Bit Safer
The Brazilian Butt Lift (BBL) is a cosmetic procedure where doctors remove fat from a patient’s abdomen and inject it into the patient’s buttocks. The goal is to inject the fat into the patient’s skin, but if a doctor injects the fat into the patient’s gluteal muscle, instead, a potentially deadly complication called fat embolism can occur. Fat embolism is when a piece of fat enters the patient’s bloodstream. 25 patients have died of complications from BBL since 2010. All but two of the fatalities occurred at clinics that perform a high volume of BBL surgeries and send patients home after a short recovery time with little monitoring.
In July 2023, a new law, HB 1471, went into effect. It states that doctors who perform BBL must do so under ultrasound guidance, so that they can be sure that the needle is not entering the muscle. It also requires additional inspections of outpatient cosmetic surgery clinics by the Department of Health. Regulatory bodies within the medical profession have been calling for laws like this for several years. A cosmetic surgeon known as “Dr. Miami” on Tik Tok, says that he wishes the law would also require doctors who wish to offer the procedure to complete an apprenticeship with a surgeon who has successfully performed the surgery many times before they begin performing it on their own.
Contact Douglas & Douglas About Personal Injury Cases
A North Florida personal injury lawyer can help you if you are suffering from serious complications after a medical error that occurred during an elective surgery. Contact Douglas & Douglas in Jacksonville, Florida for a free consultation.
Source:
miaminewtimes.com/news/florida-law-aims-to-make-brazilian-butt-lifts-safer-in-wake-of-patient-deaths-17671859
