Negligence allegations may cost doctor his licence

By: SCOTT MARSHALL - Staff Writer | Friday, January 9, 2004 10:31 PM PST ∞

VISTA ---- A doctor may lose his medical license in the wake of allegations that four women endured harrowing surgeries in an unsanitary doctor's office without proper anesthesia, leading some to kick and scream during operations.

The license of Dr. William E. Watkins, 56, of Valley Center was suspended temporarily in August pending the outcome of a hearing on accusations that the Medical Board of California filed against him in connection with the treatment the women are alleged to have received in 2000 and 2001 at Watkins' Vista office.

A state administrative law judge is scheduled to hold a hearing in June on the allegations and the board's request to revoke Watkins' license. The doctor wrote in a declaration filed with the state's office of administrative hearings that he stopped performing surgical procedures in 2001 and closed his Vista office in March 2003, providing care to patients only on an on-call basis since then.

Watkins' attorney, Gabriel Benrubi, could not be reached for comment Friday. In his signed declaration, Watkins disputed the accusations against him.

The doctor wrote that none of the women showed signs of severe pain during their surgeries and that all of them expressed satisfaction with the results of the plastic surgery after they were completed.

Written declarations from the women and a doctor who reviewed their cases at the medical board's request describe scenarios starkly different from what Watkins described.

"The four cases I reviewed are all amazingly similar in that Dr. Watkins consistently displayed what I called a remarkable abandonment of most of the important surgical advances of the twentieth century," wrote Dr. Jack Fisher, who specializes in plastic surgery and is an emeritus professor of surgery at UC San Diego.

Fisher wrote that Watkins operated in an environment "rife with potential for disaster" and in a manner that showed a cruelty, inhumanity and ignorance of safe surgical procedures "that literally defies comprehension."

Watkins wrote in his declaration that he never intended to inflict any harm or pain on his patients, and sought to provide them the best medical and surgical results that he could.

All four women saw Watkins for breast augmentation surgery, and one of the four also received a face-lift, documents filed with the Office of Administrative Hearings stated.

The allegations against Watkins include that he performed the operations in a room with "clutter" and with patients sitting in a "dental type chair." The doctor also used local anesthesia instead of general anesthesia, the documents stated.

One of the woman wrote in a declaration that she complained of feeling pain throughout her September 2000 operation and that she began kicking at one point, prompting Watkins to tell his assistant to hold her legs down. Watkins wrote in a declaration that the woman never screamed or thrashed to the point that she needed to be held down, and that providing additional injections of anesthesia at any sign of discomfort "yielded positive results."

Another woman alleged that before Watkins performed a face-lift on her, he appeared to wash his hands with dishwashing soap and that during the surgery, Watkins made changes to her ears without her consent. During a second surgery to correct problems with the first, the woman screamed in pain as Watkins pushed a knife under her scalp, she alleged.

Nevertheless, the woman returned to Watkins a month later for breast augmentation, which she also alleged was painful. She underwent surgery in May 2001 with a different doctor to correct problems from Watkins' operations, the medical board's accusation alleged.

Watkins performed breast augmentation surgery on a third woman in January 2001. The woman alleged that the operating room looked like a kitchen because it had a sink with dishes in it. About an hour into the operation, the woman started shaking and heard her daughter, who worked for Watkins, tell the doctor she was going into shock, the woman wrote in a declaration.

The woman wrote that she said if she died, to tell her husband that she loved him.

During surgery on a fourth woman, Watkins is alleged to have become frustrated and left the room. The woman alleged that she had to have her friend, a surgical technician who came with her to the operation, remove her implants in Watkins' operating room because she was in so much pain.

Contact staff writer Scott Marshall at (760) 631-6623 or smarshall@nctimes.com.