The Florida Department of Health has found that a doctor made mistakes in administering sedatives to Rony Wendrow, the sister of Broward County Commissioner Ilene Lieberman, who went into cardiac arrest on the operating table and later died after undergoing minor cosmetic surgery.
The findings contained in a 15-page report released Tuesday contradicts a recent ruling by Broward County Medical Examiner Joshua Perper's office that Dr. Harold Bass acted properly during the surgery and that Wendrow's death was caused by a preexisting heart condition. Perper referred calls to an associate who conducted the autopsy. "Dr. Perper is not speaking about this case," said Sherri Baker, the ME's administrative assistant.
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The health department hired an independent expert in anesthesiology to review the case and found that the doctor's treatment of Wendrow "fell below the standard of care in several manners." The expert, who isn't named in the report, found that Bass gave Wendrow "inappropriate" amounts of Demerol and the sedative Versed for the minor eyelid and neck operations Wendrow was undergoing.
The health department issued an emergency order last week restricting Wendrow's physician, Harold Bass, from performing surgeries requiring sedation without a licensed anesthesiologist at his side. A hearing is being scheduled during which the state could also discipline the doctor's license.
I called Bass this morning at Strax Rejuvenation and Aesthetics Institute in Lauderhill, where he operated on Wendrow, and left a message that so far has gone unreturned. A receptionist said he was in surgery.
He also found that Demerol should not have been administered at all in light of prescription drugs Wendrow was taking, including Prestiq, Gabapenin and Xanax. Mixing those drugs, the expert opined, could create "life-threatening conditions."
The expert found that the local anesthetic that Bass used on Wendrow, Marcaine, was also "problematic due to the medication's significant cardiac toxicity at higher doses."
The findings provide stark contrast to Perper's finding. Perper is retiring after Gov. Rick Scott, in a surprise move, decided not to reappoint him last month. Perper gained the national spotlight when he conducted the autopsy of Anna Nicole Smith, but had a high-profile professional gaffe last year when it was determined that he wrongly ruled that Fountainebleau Hotel foundress Bernice Novack had died from accidental falls at her home when she had actually been bludgeoned to death in a brutal murder.
You can read the entire health department report on the Wendrow case here.