The Florida Department of Health has accused a plastic surgeon who practiced at a Miami strip mall of causing the death of a patient in 2025 after a botched Brazilian butt lift.
According to an administrative complaint against Dr. Fermin Morales obtained by the Miami Herald, Dr. Morales held positions at New Life Plastic Surgery and Butinick Aesthetics Clinic in West Miami-Dade. He allegedly injected fat into the wrong area during an operation on an unnamed patient’s hip, a mistake that turned out to be fatal.
In 2025, Morales also worked at the Venus Institute for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery/Dassault Plastic Surgery, located in a high street shopping center in Doral, Florida. In February of that year, a 40-year-old woman identified in the complaint by the initials S.L., came in for a Brazilian buttock lift, or “liposuction with hip fat transplantation.”
Brazilian butt lifts usually transfer fat from the abdomen and back to the buttocks, but do not inject it into the gluteal muscles. Injecting fat into the gluteal muscles is deadly and violates Florida administrative regulations. The complaint alleges that Morales used ultrasound assistance to inject fat into S.L. ‘s buttocks, but mistakenly injected fat into her gluteal muscles instead.
The consequences were almost immediate, and the woman died the next day. According to the report, the autopsy “revealed numerous torn fat globules in the superficial and deep gluteal muscles on the left and right sides of S.L.” Additional fat globules were also found in the blood vessels of her left lung.
Before the fatal incident, Morales had a good record since obtaining his medical license in 2011. He has been certified by the American Board of Surgery since 2009.
Morales is just one of many doctors at New Life Plastic Surgery who have been charged with accidental death. In 2022, Dr. Naveed Nosrati faced a medical malpractice lawsuit after a botched tummy tuck caused a patient to suffer a fatal pulmonary embolism. His insurance company paid $250,000 to settle the lawsuit.
In another failed hip lift surgery in Brazil, Dr. Julio Clavijo-Alvarez was fined by the state for misplacing a drainage tube. He was also found to have pre-signed blank prescriptions. Like many cosmetic procedures, Brazilian butt lifts are extremely delicate and have a far greater chance of going wrong than the average patient usually realizes.
A woman in the UK who sought a Brazilian buttock lift in order to achieve her goal of making her hips bigger through fitness ended up with her butt rotting from the inside. Another woman from the UK travelled to Turkey for a Brazilian buttock lift but died in the post-operative recovery room. When her body was sent home, parts of her brain, lungs and heart were missing. Still, the plastic surgery trend continues, and even those who have survived near-fatal procedures continue to undergo more.
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