California Woman Claims Plastic Surgeon Experimented on Her During Surgery

A woman from Studio City, California is asking authorities in California to prosecute Dr. Max Lehfeldt of Pasadena even after she received a settlement of one million dollars from a lawsuit against the surgeon.

Wendy Knecht claims that Lehfeldt altered her medical records after she sued him for using an experimental device during her breast reconstruction surgery.

The Details According to Knecht

Back in 2016, Knecht claimed that she was left disfigured after her surgery. She also claimed she was forced to undergo a series of three additional surgeries to remove a device, which is known as a SERI Scaffold, in order to repair the damage caused by its failure.

Knecht says she is still suffering pain from the surgeries and that Lehfeldt failed to inform her that SERI Scaffold was not approved for medical use in surgeries such as her procedure. Finally, she claims the surgeon altered her medical records to include discussions that never took place between the two of them.

She is asking the California Medical Board to investigate Lehfeldt, the owner of Teleos Plastic Surgery, for potentially violating state laws.

Conflicting Info from the Doctor

In response to an earlier investigation from the California Medical Board, Lehfeldt’s responses conflicted with his testimony as well as his notes during a deposition. He did admit to altering records without notifying the state as well as giving Knecht a deficient consent form and failing to update his website to reflect the fact that the FDA has an unfavorable stance on the use of SERI during breast surgery.

It was also revealed that Lehfeldt was paid almost half a million dollars for consulting and research work by SERI during a period of four years.

Huntington Hospital Speaks Out

According to his website, Lehfeldt teaches surgical residents at Huntington Hospital. He is also affiliated with Southern California Methodist Hospitals in Arcadia.

In a statement released by Huntington Hospital, spokeswoman Dorey Huston would not say if the hospital is investigating the claims made by Knecht. She did say, “Like all physicians with privileges at Huntington Hospital, Dr. Lehfeldt is subject to common peer review.”

The Reason Knecht had Cosmetic Surgery

In the year 2015, Knecht had breast reconstruction surgery after undergoing a double mastectomy. She decided to have the surgeries after a medical test showed she has the BRCA gene. This gene is a mutation that is believed to raise the chances of ovarian and breast cancer. Her mother passed away from cancer so she decided to have the surgery.

In a complaint to the Medical Board in March, her attorney wrote: “Dr. Lehfeldt misrepresented the safety and efficacy of these devices to Mrs. Knecht and her husband (a board certified gastroenterologist), concealed the existence of alternate safer devices/therapies, and altered her medical records to cover up what he did.”

More specifically, Knecht complained to the medical board that the doctor changed his notes from an early meeting between the two of them to indicate that he had discussed the differences between SERI and a more common alternative called AlloDerm.

Lehfeldt admitted to the changes during a 2017 deposition.

The complaint also claims Lehfeldt might have withheld 30 pages of medical records from the state board. It also accuses him of lying during a response to the board in 2016. The board closed the first investigation two months after the doctor submitted his records and response.

Thanks to the new complaint, the Medical Board has opened a second investigation that remains ongoing. Lehfeldt’s sworn testimony is included in the evidence this time since it was subpoenaed as part of the probe.

When Lehfeldt began his doctor/patient relationship with Knecht, he was also an investigator studying the use of SERI in breast reconstruction. Knecht claims she was never told this fact but Lehfeldt says he provided both Knecht and her husband verbal disclosures about this fact even though it was not always noted in his records.

Her attorney described it as human experimentation and, during an interview, Knecht said “He never told us it was off-label; he never told us he was doing experiments with it at the same time. He just used it on me.”

The SERI Scaffold is supposed to be absorbed by the body. This was not the case with Knecht. The remnants were left behind and were described by a later surgeon as if “a sponge had exploded” inside her chest.

For over a year, she felt constant pain and tightness in her chest. She was told it would go away in the second phase of the surgery after the temporary expanders were replaced with implants. However, the sensation did not stop.

She had three additional surgeries to try to fix the problem. In their medical notes, the two additional surgeons described having to remove SERI from her chest wall because it had not adhered properly.

A lawsuit was filed in late 2016 saying Knecht had likely suffered nerve damage because of the surgeries. Lehfeldt settled shortly after his deposition for the $1 million limit on his insurance policy.

The California Medical Board has not commented on the ongoing investigation.