Beverly Hills Anesthesiologist Charged With Murdering Plastic Surgery Patient

In a rare occurrence for the medical world, a Beverly Hills anesthesiologist was charged with murder Wednesday after overdosing a patient resulted in the patient’s death, the Los Angeles Times reported. The procedure occurred at the Rodeo Drive Plastic Surgery Center in Beverly Hills.

Dr. Stephen Kyosung Kim was performing plastic surgery on 71-year-old Dr. Mark Greenspan when, according to prosecutors, Kim injected himself with narcotics and performed the procedure under the influence of said drugs. Kim allegedly then gave Greenspan a fatal dose of the narcotic Demerol, which caused his patient to go into cardiac arrest and die.

Kim, 53, pleaded not guilty and is free on bail at the moment, according to KCAL-9. If found guilty, Kim would potentially face 25 to life in prison. Greenspan’s sister said Greenspan was a beloved southern California doctor who worked at seven different offices across 38 years of service.

Per the LA Times, it is not common for medical professionals to be held criminally accountable when a patient dies. Rather, they usually deal with malpractice lawsuits and potentially lose their medical licenses when that happens. For Kim to be hit with a murder charge is unusual, but not entirely without precedent, as Dr. Hsiu-Ying Tseng was actually convicted of second-degree murder in 2015, the first doctor to receive such a conviction in the United States. Tseng was found guilty of “recklessly prescribing drugs” to her patient, many of whom eventually died with said drugs in their systems, per the LA Times.