investigation has uncovered a litany of troubling practices across Dr Lanzer’s network, including serious hygiene and safety breaches, and examples of botched procedures that have leftWhistleblowers and former patients describe Dr Lanzer’s clinics as chaotic places that “set off alarm bells”.“People are just pushed in and out, blood everywhere, fat everywhere,” says nurse Lauren Hewish, who worked for Dr Lanzer for 18 months and left the business in April.
Another patient, a Victorian policewoman who requested anonymity for professional reasons, says Dr Lanzer did a tummy tuck on her that required corrective surgery. Staff being asked to store human fat in their fridges at home to avoid questions from regulators during an inspection.One video shows Dr Lanzer’s staff and contractors dancing and singing while performing liposuction procedures on an unconscious patient. In the recording, two doctors laugh and dance to Dolly Parton’sas they thrust long stainless-steel cannulas into an unconscious male patient, as if to the beat.
But many cosmetic procedures are performed in registered day hospitals or outpatient facilities, which are arguably not scrutinised as closely by regulators as major hospitals. Specialist plastic surgeons, on the other hand, have received at least eight to 12 years of postgraduate surgical training, including cosmetic surgery, that is accredited by the national standards body for medical training, the Australian Medical Council, recognised by the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency .Experts say social media has been a big driver of the increase in cosmetic surgery in Australia and around the world.
Registered nurses Lauren Hewish and Justin Nixon resigned from Dr Lanzer’s centres and say they feel compelled to speak out about what they saw. “I’ve been doing facelifts for 30 years and I’ve never seen that before,” said Dr Briggs, while Dr Rubinstein was shocked that one of the staples had gone through the patient’s cartilage.“We never use staples on the face, in front of the ear. It’s such a delicate, cosmetically sensitive, important part of the face. It’s the part of the face that the community, their husbands, their lovers, their kids, their family, their friends, see every single day,” said Professor Ashton.
Former patient Jackie had liposuction on her neck by a doctor – not Dr Lanzer – at one of the clinics in December 2020. “I was just ... in such excruciating agony that I could not think or feel. I just felt pain ... All I could think is, ‘I’ve got to get through this.’ I couldn’t get up and run away ... it was like you trusted someone to look after you and you were suddenly in a position you hadn’t seen coming.”
“This looks like a normal, domestic fridge ... [there] doesn’t look to be any temperature control monitoring. And there doesn’t seem to be any sterility,” said Professor Ashton.“We have drugs which have been sealed with masking tape, sitting right next to drinking water in a commercial fridge. This, this is not even close to acceptable medical behaviour.”
Professor Ashton said: “There is no sterility, there is no concept of sterility, and how this is allowed to occur is ... bewildering. I’ll call it out, it’s frankly dangerous.” Mr Nixon says he recalls nurses being asked to take human fat home and put it in their fridge until after an audit. “There’d be big bags, or shopping bags from Coles or Woolworths stuffed with syringes, or bags, liposuction bags full of fat,” he said.
Professor Ashton says “this sort of, macho bragging about how much fluid ... about how much fat he can remove shows a complete disconnect from the doctor-patient relationship”. “I’ve written a chapter in the book of liposuction about how to avoid complications. I’ve spoken in America about my method of mega-liposuction at both the American Academy of Dermatology and the American academy of cosmetic surgeons. Painful lipidemia and obesity are serious issues. And there’s a safe, life-changing operation in the hands of the right person. And I’m proud of it.
Ms Hubble denied the allegations, saying she wasn’t working at the time, had taken antibiotics “diligently” and she denied the offer of treatment because she was in hospital.Dr Lanzer said patients are adequately warned about infections. “So the patient knew that it’s a risk, even though it’s one in a thousand, it’s so rare,” he said. “After liposuction, you see, they develop what’s called seromas, it’s a type of fluid, which can be easily drained ... with a needle.
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