In November 2011, a 28-year-old woman visited the Irving office of Dr. Hector Oscar Molina for an arm lift and breast implants. Molina, ignoring the fact that he had no formal plastic surgery training, that his patient was a dangerously heavy 300-plus pounds, that his office wasn't technically sterile, and that the Chineses-made implants he was using weren't approved by the FDA, performed the procedure.
It did not go well. The surgery lasted an excruciating 17 hours. At one point, the anesthesia wore off and the woman woke up, screaming in pain. She was later taken to Baylor, where doctors removed her implants and monitored her for 25 days.
That wasn't the first time Molina had botched a surgery. Seven months before, a woman couldn't feel her feet after a Brazilian butt lift and had to be rushed to the hospital, according to the lawsuit she later filed. A liposuction procedure he performed turned out somewhat better, probably because he read the manual that came with the equipment and took a brief online course.
It was the November surgery, though, that brought down the wrath of the Texas Medical Board. In August, the board concluded that he had been seriously negligent, violated any number of professional standards and endangered the life of the patient. The punishment came on November 30, 2012, when Molina agreed to stop performing surgery.
That's it, or just about. He also has to pay a $1,000 penalty, pass a medical jurisprudence test (he has just three tries to score 75!), and can no longer write prescriptions. That pales in comparison to the punishment he received in 2004 for offering prescriptions over the Internet. For that, his license was restricted for three years and he had to pay a $25,000 fine.
And Molina had already given up on surgery. When a TMB compliance officer checked on him in July, they found that he had moved to a new office and is now practicing family medicine. That and allegedly supplying steroids to mixed martial arts combatants.
