Who is Karl Schwarz? Miami surgeon accused of injecting liposuction patient with plastic-infused blood
MIAMI, FLORIDA: Plastic surgeon Dr Karl William Schwarz has been accused of injecting plastic-contaminated blood into a liposuction patient. The 34-year-old female patient, who identified herself as “SH,” is also upset as she has been denied a refund for a Brazilian Butt Lift (BBL) that was not performed.
As per the Florida Department of Health administrative complaint, the patient “SH" visited 305 Plastic Surgery on 564 SW 42nd Ave, on January 26, 2021, with the intention of carrying out a liposuction with fat transfer and cell saver by Dr Schwarz. A Brazillian Butt Lift or ‘BBL’ is a procedure where fat is sucked from various body parts and injected into buttocks. The complaint also described cell saver as a blood transfer procedure that “involves recovering blood lost during surgery and re-infusion into the patient,” per Miami Herald.
Who is Dr Karl Schwarz?
Dr Karl William Schwarz or Dr William Scwarz is an accredited plastic surgeon licensed to practice in four states including Florida, North Carolina, Michigan and Kentucky. As per the 305 Plastic Surgery’s website, Dr Scwarz has been an alum of top educational institutions like the University of British Columbia in Canada, Wayne State University in Michigan, and Duke University in North Carolina. With over 20 years of experience, he is said to be specializing in Breast Augmentation & Reduction, Breast Lifts, Breast Implants, Tummy Tucks, Liposuction, and Brazilian Butt Lifts (BBL).
Dr Schwarz’s attorney Gregory Chaires has responded to the complaint with a long letter on the aesthetician’s behalf. He said that Dr Schwarz has agreed to pay a $7,500 fine, up to $6,196 in case costs, take a five-hour continuing medical education course in risk management and a three-hour course in medical recordkeeping. Apart from that, a letter of concern also will be filed against Schwarz’s license. However, whether the proposal on Dr Schwarz’s behalf will be granted will only be decided during the August 4 meeting of the Board of Medicine. The Public Book for the complaint is available on the Board of Medicine’s website where both Florida Department of Health’s complaint and Dr Schwarz’s response via attorney Chairs are posted.
In the letter Chair mentioned, “As Dr. Schwarz wishes to put this matter behind him so that he may return his complete focus to his patients and family, he has decided to enter into the proposed settlement agreement,” after denying the accusations of injecting blood contaminated with plastics.
Dr Schwarz became a licensed doctor in Florida on June 28, 2017, and was certified by the American Board of Plastic Surgery on November 11, 2017. He has not faced any disciplinary measures since then. In the letter, Chaires claims that ‘SH’ was in Dr Schwarz’s clinic for 360 liposuction (that includes sucking fat from the abdomen, waist, mid back, lower back, “love handles”) and BBL in January 2021. However, she previously got both these procedures done by a different surgeon on 21 November, 2019.
As per the complaint, the doctor told ‘SH’ that the liposuction and cell saver were performed but he did not perform the fat transfer “due to the discovery of small beads of plastic during the liposuction procedure.” However, the complaint also claimed that while doing the cell saver re-injection, Dr Schwarz injected blood “that was recovered from the liposuction procedure after discovering plastic beads in the tissue removed from S.H.” The complaint continued to allege that while Schwarz “noted in S.H.’s operative report that (he) injected 990 cc of fat into each of S.H.’s buttocks," in reality "he had failed to inject any fat into either one of S.H.’s buttocks.”
What actually happened as per Dr Schwarz?
Chaires tries to clear the web of confusion that rose from the chain of events. He writes that while Schwarz indeed found hard “spherical, pea-sized objects” during the liposuction of the back area, he did not infuse that blood during the cell saver procedure. He explains that the cell saver procedure was actually done by the anesthesiologist who used uncontaminated blood drawn from the patient’s front. The presence of the beads-like objects was the reason while Schwarz did not inject them in the patient’s buttocks.
However, Chaires claims that the department’s reviewing physician, Dr Byron “Pat” Pazmino “critically misunderstood the events that occurred” during the surgery. Chaires said, “The administrative complaint is framed upon the opinion by Dr. Pazmino, which incorrectly represents events that did not occur, namely the alleged injection/transfusion of red blood cells into the patient that were mixed with lipoaspirate contaminated with foreign bodies,” before adding, “The patient only received aspirate from the front of her body, which was obtained prior to and apart from the back of her body where the foreign bodies were identified.” He further added that the patient returned the next day and was “healing well and was without complaint.” She was only “upset because she was not given a refund for the butt lift not done.”