Melissa Rivers Suing Dr. Gwen Korovin Following Death Of Joan Rivers: Report

Melissa Rivers is suing Dr. Gwen Korovin after she performed a throat biopsy at Yorkville Endoscopy when Joan Rivers went into cardiac arrest. Rivers passed away Sept. 4, a week after being hospitalized following an unplanned throat biopsy during a routine endoscopy at the Upper East Side clinic in New York.

“It’s very difficult to discuss something so unpleasant with her, but she is going to launch a lawsuit,” a friend of Melissa Rivers said to the Daily Mail. Korovin, Joan Rivers’ personal physician, continues to see patients and has been hailed as the “patron saint of Broadway singers and actors.” The walls of her East 77th Street office are lined with pictures and thank you notes from stars she has previously helped, including Mick Jagger and Celine Dion.

Rivers had gone to the clinic for “a diagnostic procedure [to] see why her voice had gotten raspy,” the Daily News reported. When the doctor performing the endoscopy found “something” on Rivers' vocal cords, Korovin asked to perform a throat biopsy, the report stated.

During the biopsy, Rivers went into cardiac respiratory arrest and was rushed to Mount Sinai. She passed away a week later. She was 81.

“Korovin maintains privileges at one of the city’s most prestigious hospitals. She is respected and admired by her peers in the medical community and she is revered by her patients,” Korovin’s lawyer, Michael Kelton, said in a statement released to the Daily Mail.