Cosmetic surgeon suspended from practising for 12 months

Posted: 18/01/2022

Mr Vasu Karri (GMC number: 4631035), a cosmetic surgeon specialising in ‘fat disease’ procedures including lymphoedema, abdominoplasty, and lipoedema surgery, has been suspended from practicing for 12 months, following a tribunal that heard he had falsified and backdated patient notes to include potential complications which had not previously been discussed with a patient, and then lied about doing so.

Mr Karri worked as a private consultant plastic surgeon at his own practice, The Karri Clinic, with hospital privileges at hospitals including Kinvara Private Hospital, Spire Hull and East Riding Hospital, and Goole and District Hospital at the time of the incident. The review of his practice occurred following the complaint of a private patient, who suffered complications which she had not been informed about as a possibility at the time of surgery in 2016. She requested her medical records two years after the treatment, and noticed inaccuracies in the notes, prompting her to report this to the trust.

The hearing took place in August 2021 and held: ‘on the balance of probabilities, that Mr Karri had taken home the patient's medical notes after she requested them, and retrospectively amended them to include post-op complications that she was now experiencing’. The General Medical Council (GMC) submitted that Mr Karri’s dishonesty ‘was serious dishonesty and was not a one-off, spur of the moment act, but part of a pattern of repeated dishonesty’, and that under the Good Medical Practice (GMP) Guidelines (2013), Mr Karri’s fitness to practice was impaired. By not informing his patient of all of the risks of her surgery, he had also failed to appropriately obtain her consent.

A tribunal review will take place shortly before the end of Mr Karri’s suspension ends in the summer of 2022. His clinic is still running, but no new patients are being taken on under his care until his suspension has concluded.

At Penningtons Manches Cooper, our clinical negligence and personal injury teams specialise in a range of cosmetic surgery cases, including inappropriate or inadequate treatment, and informed consent (where a client has not been informed correctly about the treatment and/or risks of it prior to agreeing to go ahead with the procedure). If you are concerned about care arising out of a cosmetic surgery procedure performed in England or Wales, or by Mr Karri directly, please contact us for a free informal discussion. Please note, we cannot help with claims involving treatment in Scotland.

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