A Coral Gables doctor went in for an appendix but removed only fat, state complaint says
A Florida Department of Health administrative complaint filed against Dr. Fernando Lora says a Coral Gables Hospital patient’s appendix burst after Lora went in to take it out and took out fat.
This administrative complaint, filed Dec. 19, was the second in 28 days filed against Lora, a licensed doctor in Florida since Feb. 21, 1985. The earlier complaint concerned myriad problems at Miami Surgical Center, where Lora was the designated physician, the person responsible for making sure the office plastic surgery center complied with the state standards inspectors found it flouting.
Administrative complaints start the process toward possible discipline by the state.
Lora’s Florida Department of Health online profile also claims board certification from the American Board of Surgery, although a certification check shows that Lora’s board certification ran out 32 years and six months ago, on July 1, 1990. His current status is “not certified.”
The December complaint concerns what happened after a woman the complaint identifies as “S.G.” showed up at Coral Gables Hospital on May 18, 2019, with “severe abdominal pain.” The complaint said a CT scan revealed an inflamed appendix and Lora went in for an appendectomy.
“[Lora] performed an appendectomy, but failed to remove S.G.’s appendix and instead removed an inflamed appendix epiloia,” the complaint said.
“Epiploic appendices are pedunculated, serosa-covered accumulations of adipose tissue seen on the lateral aspects of the colon,” write Robert Petras and Wendy Frankel in 2009’s Modern Surgical Pathology (second edition).
Adipose tissue is, in simplest terms, body fat.
The complaint said after S.G. was discharged from Coral Gables Hospital on May 23, 2019, she came back later that day with abdominal pain and the doctor treating her “determined she had suffered a ruptured appendix.”
This story was originally published January 1, 2023 at 4:52 PM.
