A Colorado surgeon was convicted Wednesday of manslaughter in the death of a teenage patient who went into a coma during breast augmentation surgery and died a year later.
Emmalyn Nguyen, who was 18 when she underwent the procedure Aug. 1, 2019, at Colorado Aesthetic and Plastic Surgery in Greenfield Village, near Denver, fell into a coma and went into cardiac arrest after she received anesthesia, officials said.
She died at a nursing home in October 2020.
Dr. Geoffrey Kim, 54, a plastic surgeon, was found guilty Wednesday of attempted reckless manslaughter and obstruction of telephone service.
Kim, who is not in custody, faces up to three years in prison when he is sentenced Sept. 8, prosecutors said.
Lawyers representing Kim could not immediately be reached for comment Thursday.
At Kim’s trial, a nurse anesthetist testified that he advised Kim that the patient needed immediate medical attention in a hospital setting and that 911 should be called, prosecutors said.
An investigation determined Kim failed to call for help for five hours after the patient went into cardiac arrest, prosecutors said. The obstruction charge was linked to testimony that multiple medical professionals, including two nurses, requested permission to call 911 to transfer care for Nguyen, but Kim, the owner of the surgery center, denied the request, prosecutors said.
The defense put all the blame on the nurse anesthetist, according to prosecutors.
“We understand medical procedures don’t always go as planned, but this defendant showed a shocking and extreme lack of judgment and humanity by failing to call for an ambulance and denying his patient appropriate treatment in a hospital setting,” Chief Deputy District Attorney Gary Dawson said in a statement. “Patients put their trust in doctors and the outcome might have been different had the defendant sought appropriate medical care. This defendant made decisions based on what was best for his business and not for his patient.”
NBC affiliate KUSA of Denver reported Kim was acquitted of criminally negligent homicide.
The station also reported that Kim’s Colorado medical license was briefly suspended in January 2020 after the incident involving Nguyen. The next month, it was reinstated, but he was put on probation for three years and allowed to perform only procedures that required “general anesthesia and conscious sedation with an anesthesiologist present and on-site,” court records showed.
Kim was initially arrested in February 2022, the Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement.