Malignant Hyperthermia Kills Florida Teen During Surgery

Dan Frith

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You have already probably heard the sad story about the Florida teenager who died due to complications from anesthesia during corrective breast augmentation surgery. Stephanie Kuleba, age 18, was having outpatient corrective breast augmentation surgery last week in the offices of Dr. Steven Schuster in Boca Raton when she developed the symptoms of malignant hyperthermia after receiving anesthesia. She died the next day at Delray Medical Center.

This tragic loss should make everyone who undergoes anesthesia at ambulatory surgery clinics think twice.

Ambulatory surgical clinics are everywhere. Basically, a group of doctors who perform surgery get together and decide they want to charge for the operating room and not allow this payment to go to the local hospital and decide to open their own little surgery shop. This way the surgeons get to charge their professional fee and also receive income from the use of the bricks and mortar. The problem is that few of these surgery clinics have board certified anesthesiologists on staff - instead relying upon a nurse anesthetists who has less training and experience.

Reliance on less qualified medical personnel is okay...unless you face a life-threatening medical emergency like malignant hyperthermia.

Please see our follow-up post on this topic.