Threat to public safety banned
After an emergency teleconference, The Arizona Medical Board summarily suspended the license of Peter James Normann, M.D. because as an “imminent threat to public safety.” The board took this action after receiving word that a third liposuction patient of Dr. Normann’s had died. Norman, AMB-certified in Internal Medicine, first received his Arizona license to practice in 2004 and has operated the Normann Medical Group at Anthem.
On May 3 of this year, Normann was forced to enter into a consent agreement with the board, restricting Normann’s practice after Normann’s care and treatment of a 33 year old male and a 41 year old female, both of whom suffered cardiac arrest during in-office liposuction procedures and subsequently died at John C. Lincoln Hospital in Phoenix in December 2006 and April 2007, respectively.
The consent agreement prohibited Normann from performing any office procedures, surgeries, or use of conscious sedation. That restriction remains in place. The patient who died on July 3 was in the care of Dr. Normann following a liposuction procedure performed by a homeopathic physician not licensed by the Arizona Medical Board.
A medical consultant who reviewed the earlier cases for the board determined that the patients died as the failure in multiple aspects of the standard of care for the proper use of an anaesthetic in conscious sedation. The consultant also said the deaths “occurred in a bizarre practice setting, characterized by patterns of failure to meet even the most basic standards of modern medicine and patient safety, including record keeping and documentation, informed consent, hiring qualified personnel, supervising personnel, and proper pre-operative patient evaluation.”
The case now goes to the Office of Administrative Hearings for an expedited hearing before an Administration Law Judge within the next sixty days.
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