The state medical board today revoked the license of a Stamford family doctor accused of performing cosmetic procedures without the proper training, qualifications, staff or safety precautions, saying that his continued practice posed a danger to the public.
Dr. Efraim Gomez-Zapata, 58, faced charges stemming from his care of eight patients, one of whom had a seizure on his operating table and another who went into respiratory arrest, which a doctor consulting for the state said may have occurred after Gomez-Zapata injected spinal anesthesia into the wrong part of her back.
Gomez-Zapata has acknowledged that he did not have the proper license to operate an outpatient surgical facility, saying he did not know one was necessary. But he denied the other allegations and said the patient complications were not his fault.
But members of the medical board voted to revoke his license and said in a written decision that Gomez-Zapata "blatantly ignores the facts."
The decision said the doctor "consistently placed the health and safety of his patients at extreme risks when he performed surgical procedures without appropriate surgical, anesthetic, and advanced cardiac life support training and qualifications, in an unlicensed outpatient surgical facility, without qualified personnel, and without the necessary medical records and documentation."
Gomez-Zapata has been barred from practicing medicine since last May, when the medical board suspended his license. A hearing process was already underway in his case, but the board exercised its authority to suspend a doctor's license before disciplinary proceedings take place if it believes a physician's actions represent an immediate danger to the public.
Gomez-Zapata's attorney, John J. Evans, blasted the board's decision Tuesday, and suggested that it may be seeking to keep general physicians from performing aesthetic medicine.
Evans said he had not decided whether to appeal.
Dr. Efraim Gomez-Zapata, 58, faced charges stemming from his care of eight patients, one of whom had a seizure on his operating table and another who went into respiratory arrest, which a doctor consulting for the state said may have occurred after Gomez-Zapata injected spinal anesthesia into the wrong part of her back.
Gomez-Zapata has acknowledged that he did not have the proper license to operate an outpatient surgical facility, saying he did not know one was necessary. But he denied the other allegations and said the patient complications were not his fault.
But members of the medical board voted to revoke his license and said in a written decision that Gomez-Zapata "blatantly ignores the facts."
The decision said the doctor "consistently placed the health and safety of his patients at extreme risks when he performed surgical procedures without appropriate surgical, anesthetic, and advanced cardiac life support training and qualifications, in an unlicensed outpatient surgical facility, without qualified personnel, and without the necessary medical records and documentation."
Gomez-Zapata has been barred from practicing medicine since last May, when the medical board suspended his license. A hearing process was already underway in his case, but the board exercised its authority to suspend a doctor's license before disciplinary proceedings take place if it believes a physician's actions represent an immediate danger to the public.
Gomez-Zapata's attorney, John J. Evans, blasted the board's decision Tuesday, and suggested that it may be seeking to keep general physicians from performing aesthetic medicine.
Evans said he had not decided whether to appeal.
