Brazilian butt lift ban for Tampa doctor after mother dies
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Brazilian butt lift surgery at Tampa’s Castellano Cosmetic Surgery Clinic cost Aubrey Torres her life at age 35. It cost Torres’ son his mother just 23 months into his life.
What did it cost Tampa Dr. Joseph Castellano? A $10,000 fine, $12,854 in Florida Department of Health case costs and the ability to do Brazilian butt lifts in the future.
That’s in the Board of Medicine final order on Castellano’s discipline case, which posted in July, accepting a settlement agreement. Castellano also has to take a five-hour continuing medical education course in risk management.
Hillsborough County online court records and Castellano’s Florida Department of Health profile say he settled a malpractice suit filed by Torres’ estate for $250,000 in March 2022.
The fine and the ban are the first discipline on the Florida license Castellano has held since April 5, 2011. Though his profile says he’s also licensed in Indiana, that license expired in June 30, 2011 without any discipline cases. The American Board of Surgery says Castellano has been board certified in general surgery since November 2010.
READ MORE: Here’s how to check out your Brazilian butt lift doctor or plastic surgeon in Florida
The last surgery
The administrative complaint and the lawsuit say Torres came to the Castellano Cosmetic Surgery Center for abdominalplasty and liposuction along with gluteal fat grafting (Brazilian butt lift).
In BBL surgery, the fat from elsewhere, usually the abdomen is sucked out with a “cannula” and injected into the buttock area. No organs should be touched and no fat should be inserted into or under the buttock muscles. The latter is a violation of Florida statutes.
But, the complaint said, Castellano injected fat into Torres’ gluteal muscles. Torres stopped breathing while still under anesthesia. Emergency medical services personnel hustled her to Memorial Hospital Tampa. Doctors there, the complaint said, found a pulmonary embolism along with an undiagnosed heart muscle disease.
Surgery to repair the heart issues couldn’t prevent Torres’ death.
The autopsy by pathologist Dr. Edward McDade and plastic surgeons Dr. Pat Pazmino and Dr. Onelio Garcia, the complaint said, blamed Torres’ death on “multiple bilateral fat emboli. Liquified fat and loose fat graft particles were found anterior to and between gluteal muscle bundles.”
Since 1989, David J. Neal’s domain at the Miami Herald has expanded to include writing about Panthers (NHL and FIU), Dolphins, old school animation, food safety, fraud, naughty lawyers, bad doctors and all manner of breaking news. He drinks coladas whole. He does not work Indianapolis 500 Race Day.
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