Breaking News: Dallas Woman Dies after Plastic Surgery in Mexico

The family of a Dallas woman that was placed on life support after undergoing plastic surgery at a clinic in Mexico reported that she died on Saturday.

Laura Avilia went to Cuidad Juarez in late October to have rhinoplasty and breast implant replacement surgery at “Rino Center” surgery center. She never woke up after the surgery.

A GoFundMe page was established by the family. The page stated that “Without knowledge to her fiancé, Laura suffered a cardiac arrest for four minutes. She was then placed into a medically induced coma to prevent further damage to her brain that was caused by the complications she experienced during anesthesia.”

Avilia passed away after being in a coma for close to a month.

Post-Surgery Problems

Once Avilia had the botched surgery, she spent six days in an Intensive Care Unit in Mexico before she was transferred to a hospital in El Paso, Texas. She was suffering seizures due to brain damage from the surgery.

According to her sister, the doctors at the hospital in El Paso told her that the “Rhinocenter” doctors put the anesthesia in the wrong place in Laura’s spine. This caused her brain to swell as well as kidney failure and cardiac arrest.

In addition, her family could not get her transferred to the El Paso hospital until they paid her hospital bill in full in Mexico. They have hired lawyers to get her full medical records from Mexico.

Her Lawyer, Family and Boyfriend Speak Out

In a statement to the press, the attorney for the Avilia family said “Laura was a beautiful woman, powerful and full of life. She had the best of life in front of her until this tragic, unfortunate and senseless death. So that her death is not in vain, people should think of Laura before they look for cross border discount surgery. They should do their homework and investigate the experience, training and track record of anyone BEFORE they sign up. Always LOOK before you leap.”

In a separate statement, her family said “Laura was mistreated by doctors in Mexico who were more interested in luring American consumers to their country for the income generated from the promise of discounted medical services than in providing proper patient care.”

Her boyfriend, Enrique Cruz, said he had performed research on the clinic before the surgery was booked. The facility had positive online reviews so they decided to visit Mexico as they also have family in the country. Cruz said that it might seem crazy that they deiced to go to another country but the area was familiar to them.

They were not the only patients that decided to travel outside of the United States for plastic surgery. According to a 2017 study, nearly 1.5 million Americans were expected to go outside of the United Stated for medical care. The cost for plastic surgery in Mexico can be anywhere from 40\\%-65\\% less than prices in the United States.

American Doctors Discuss Medical Tourism

The practice of going out of the country to undergo plastic surgery is known as medical tourism. Cosmetic Town News asked Dr. Jaime Schwartz, a plastic surgeon from Beverly Hills, about the topic of medical tourism. Dr. Schwartz said “doctors outside of the United States are not as tightly regulated and monitored as the surgeons in the United States. A ‘standard level care’ is not mandatory. Also, there are different types of infections and bacteria that are not always seen in the United States. There are also a lot of blood transfusions for elective plastic surgery procedures outside America and there is a concern about how they screen the blood.”

Dr. Jason Roostaeian, UCLA Associate Professor of Plastic Surgery, Los Angeles, CA said there are a few steps patients can take to ensure that the online reviews of a surgeon are accurate. Dr. Roostaeian does admit that “online reviews could in fact be fabricated but I believe this is rare in the United States, particularly when they are posted on a reputable or widely used third party site such as Yelp or Google or similar review sites that require some reviewer identification and verification.”

1. He went on to add that “there are two things I recommend to people to help them get an accurate sense of the reputation of a plastic surgeon amongst existing and former patients:
2. Examine online reviews from reputable third party websites that vet their reviewers.

When asked what patients should look for in a cosmetic surgeon, Dr. Schwartz said “people should look for board-certified plastic surgeons that perform a lot of the procedures they are interested in undergoing. They should find surgeons that are experts in the surgeries they promote on their websites.”  

Dr. Kevin Sadati, a board-certified plastic surgeon in Newport Beach, California says “patients should research a style that suits their expectations when it comes to visiting a cosmetic surgeon. Do the results the surgeon consistently produces match the desired outcome of the patient? The patient should consider if the surgeon has the necessary board qualifications, how long the surgeon has been practicing and if there are there ample ‘before and after’ images of the procedure they are looking to have performed.”

He added that “one of the most telling indicators that you are in the right office can be the staff.  Staff appearance can tell a patient a lot about the surgeon’s view of beauty and youthful appearance. Does the staff look natural or do they appear overdone, over filled, or surgically altered? The people you see working for the surgeon, while they may not have had a procedure done, are a direct representation of what the surgeon finds aesthetically pleasing. They need to evaluate not only what they hear from the surgeon during the consultation but also what they see presented to them in the office.  Ultimately, the patient should sit down with the surgeon to get answers to any questions or concerns they may have and to get a feel for the surgeon before making any serious decisions regarding surgery.” 

MA