Plastic surgeon from Plzeň disfigured patient's face, court expert says

A court in Plzeň is hearing the case of a plastic surgeon named Bouda, who stands accused of causing grievous bodily harm to a patient. According to the prosecution, presented by prosecutor Štefan Oravec, the woman underwent a nose reduction operation with him in 2023, after which her nose partially collapsed and the septum became deformed. The case files describe this as third-degree disfigurement, which has completely deprived the victim of the ability to lead a normal social life.

As a result of the operation, the woman's mental state deteriorated, and she developed an anxiety-depressive disorder. According to the prosecutor, the doctor's main failings were the professionally incorrect execution of the procedure and an inadequate pre-operative examination — the patient suffered from a chronic respiratory condition that was never taken into account.

Expert: the outcome could have been fixed

Court expert Paulis, himself a plastic surgeon, confirmed that the result of the operation was unsatisfactory. However, he noted that at a certain stage the situation could still have been salvaged. He pointed out that the patient subsequently underwent four more operations with other, highly respected specialists — and not one of the five operations, in total, went as it should have. "It was a chain of failed operations. Each subsequent procedure only made the previous result worse," the expert stressed.

According to Paulis, the doctor should have used a more modern technique — a special ultrasonic device instead of a hammer and chisel. It is precisely the outdated method that more often leads to breathing problems, which is exactly what happened to the victim. The expert also believes that an older patient, especially one with thick skin on the nose, which makes the operation more complicated, would have been better off being referred to another clinic.

The doctor insists: the operation went without complications

At the previous court hearing, Bouda categorically denied his guilt. For causing grievous bodily harm, he faces a three-year ban on professional practice and a fine. According to him, the patient herself wanted to reduce her genuinely large nose; he warned her of the risks, including a possibly insufficient aesthetic effect, and the operation itself went without complications. The doctor claims that after the splint was removed a few days later, the nose clearly looked better than before the procedure, and he noticed no deformities.

According to the surgeon, the patient contacted him about two weeks later and said she was unhappy with the result. He explained that she needed to wait three months for full healing, and they agreed on a date for a follow-up operation — but the woman never showed up and did not reappear until the court hearing. The doctor also suggested that problems could have arisen during the healing process itself, due to sleeping on her stomach or because of a previous cancer surgery he had not been told about.

This is not the first such case in Bouda's practice: he has previously had to pay 100,000 crowns in compensation for a failed operation — the removal of excess fat from the thighs and buttocks. In that case, a civil court found that the doctor had rushed and acted without sufficient care.

Source: novinky.cz