Court Restores License of Santa Ana Physician : Target of Complaints in Plastic Surgery Cases Is Permitted to Practice Pending State Hearing

A Santa Ana plastic/cosmetic surgeon who lost his license two months ago on a court restraining order based on patient complaints won it back Monday when a Superior Court judge said the state so far has failed to prove its case against him.

Dr. James D. Dean, 54, who claims he is caught up in a political battle between plastic surgeons and cosmetic surgeons, will now be permitted to practice until a hearing scheduled for September before the state Board of Medical Quality Assurance.

Judge Judith Ryan, explaining her ruling, said she was judging Dean’s abilities as a doctor.

“The state may very well prevail at his hearing,” she said. “All I’m saying is that, based on what was before me, the attorney general’s office did not have sufficient evidence for me to take the serious step of depriving him of his ability to practice medicine.”

The attorney general’s office accused Dean in April of gross negligence in the treatment of three women patients, including one who died within two months after he performed plastic surgery on her at his office. The attorney general’s office based its findings on the written opinions of several experts in plastic surgery.

Superior Court Commissioner Ronald L. Bauer granted a temporary restraining order pending the hearing in Ryan’s court.

The woman who died, Marvis Ferber, had undergone a stomach-tuck operation by Dean last year, according to court records. After the operation, the records show, she consulted another doctor who judged Dean’s treatment of an ensuing infection to be inadequate. Ferber died Jan. 17.

The state contends that a second woman who went to Dean for a similar operation required added care from another doctor later. A third woman, according to the state’s complaint, needs reconstructive surgery on her breast because of negligent work by Dean.

Expert Testimony

Since Bauer’s ruling, Dean’s attorneys introduced to the court statements from experts saying that techniques Dean used in treating the women were not improper.

“There was just too many conflicting expert opinions for me to say the doctor was negligent,” Ryan said.

Dean claims that he is a cosmetic surgeon and that the doctors who complained about his techniques are plastic surgeons, whose national board is feuding with the cosmetic surgeons.

Dean is not a certified plastic surgeon. But Ryan said it wasn’t necessary for him to be certified to practice plastic surgery. She said she did not consider relevant the purported feud between the two types of surgeons.