A Florida ob/gyn played anesthesiologist for fatal Brazilian butt lift, state says

A Plantation plastic surgery center used an obstetrician/gynecologist as an unqualified anesthesiologist and a Brazilian butt lift patient died after surgery, a Florida Department of Health administrative complaint says.

The complaint is against the office surgery registration license of Serenity Capital Investments, which now does business as The Best U Now Plastic Surgery. Online Florida Department of Health records list Serenity’s official license address as 4101 S. Hospital Drive, Suite No. 11. Serenity’s state corporation registration lists the address as the same building, but Suite No. 8. Both Google as The Best U’s address.

State corporate records say N’Kaeyah Wilkerson was Serenity’s manager at the time of the patient’s death. Serenity’s current managing member is Dr. Dorian Wilkerson and current registered agent is Shareza Wilkerson.

An administrative complaint starts the discipline process. The complaint is not against ob/gyn Dr. Millicent Muir, licensed in Florida since 2005, although it’s Muir’s qualifications on which the complaint is based.

The Best U Now Plastic Surgery didn’t return a message left by a Miami Herald reporter. Muir, whose address of record is The Best U Now’s location, didn’t return an email from a Herald reporter.

Liposuction, anesthesia and bradycardia

Anesthesiology doesn’t appear on the profile of Muir’s license she has held since 2005. And that’s the main problem, according to the administrative complaint against Serenity’s license.

The complaint says Sept. 17, 2021, inspection found the establishment used Muir “to provide anesthesia for patients undergoing Level II surgeries.” All the surgical documentation, the complaint said, listed Muir as handling the anesthesia for an Oct. 20, 2021, liposuction, Brazilian butt lift and breast augmentation for “J.W.”

“At the conclusion of the surgery, J.W. developed serious bradycardia and was transferred to Plantation General Hospital,” the complaint said.

“Bradycardia” is, according to Cleveland Clinic, “a condition where your heart beats fewer than 60 times per minute, which is unusually slow. This condition may be dangerous if it keeps your heart from pumping enough blood to meet your body’s needs.”

J.W. died that night.

By Florida statute, this surgery required that a “surgeon must be assisted by a qualified anesthesia provider” and the complaint said, the “surgeon was not assisted by a qualified anesthesia provider during Patient J.W.’s surgery.”

The only disciplinary action on Muir’s license is from 2019, and also involves the death of a patient.

When a woman went to labor on Dec. 12, 2012, and was taken to Pembroke Pines’ Memorial Hospital West, the administrative complaint said, it took 92 minutes for Muir to arrive though she told nurses on three phone calls she was “en route,” on her way and driving to the hospital.

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Meanwhile, the mother delivered a baby boy and suffered post-partum hemorrhaging. She died three hours after Muir arrived and took over her care. For not informing Memorial West that she wasn’t “readily available” or not making arrangements for another doctor to handle the situation, the state Board of Medicine fined Muir and restricted her from child deliveries and surgical procedures for a time.