Dr. Harrison H. Lee, MD, D, MD, FACS

Some days are worse than others. I see myself in the bathroom mirror in the morning and I just break

Some days are worse than others. I see myself in the bathroom mirror in the morning and I just break down and cry. I could never have imagined that when I went to Dr. Lee for jaw implants surgery two-and-a-half years ago that I was going to end up like this, with a lopsided face, a mouth crooked like that of someone who’s suffered a stroke, and a right jaw sunken in, scarred, discolored—completely and permanently disfigured. I guess it kind of contradicts the experiences written about in all the shining 5-star reviews. It could be that many of the 1-star reviews that would’ve been were never written, the victims of plastic surgery gone wrong too deeply depressed to even think about their disfigurement, much less write about it. Had those patients permanently damaged by Dr. Lee’s sometimes questionable, hit-and-miss surgical style shared their experience, maybe I wouldn’t have gone with him as my surgeon of choice for jaw implants surgery. And maybe I wouldn’t be sitting here today permanently disfigured with my mouth so damaged that I can’t even use mouthwash without holding my mouth closed with my hands so that it doesn’t squirt out or dribble down my chin. Who would ever imagine that a triple-board-certified doctor “specializing in facial plastic surgery”, one with a substantial celebrity clientele no less, would be capable of such bodily harm? How could I have known that what was supposed to be a one-time, over-and-done-with jaw implants surgery would “spill over” into six (6) surgeries over the course of two years?—with Dr. Lee operating on me again and again struggling to get the job done right. How could I have anticipated that the repeated surgeries would lead to a series of infections so bad that Dr. Lee would be paying my hotel bill and sending me for treatments at a hyperbaric oxygen therapy center to help with the healing? As far-fetched as it all seems, it’s exactly what happened. It started with Surgery #1 in which Dr. Lee installed the wrong size jaw implants. They were too small such that, once everything had settled and I was all healed up, you couldn’t even tell that there were implants in there. Six months later, therefore, Dr. Lee did Jaw Implants Surgery #2 to correct this problem. But instead of removing the old implants and replacing them with larger ones as you’d think he would’ve done, Dr. Lee simply “stacked” implants on top of the existing implants. This was done in spite of the fact that the Consent to Procedure form I’d signed specified “REMOVAL & REPLACEMENT of Jaw Implants”. Even more noteworthy is that I had to pay for the added-on implants as well as the “Operating Room and Anesthesia fees” for this “revision”surgery that would not have been necessary had Dr. Lee put in the right size implants in the first place. I also ended up paying for a facelift that he did at the same time as the revision jaw implants surgery, a facelift that he recommended be done to optimize the appearance of the new implants (Though I didn’t stop to think about it at the time, looking back, I can’t help but see this as the kind of “upselling” you might expect to encounter at a car dealership.). Now with two implants on each jaw, in any case, it became apparent that the right jaw somehow came out appearing smaller than the left (If only it had come out exactly like the left jaw, which looked perfect!). This led, one year later, to Surgery #3, for which I again had to pay the “Operating Room and Anesthesia fees”. It consisted of Dr. Lee, in an attempt to make the right jaw match the left, installing yet another implant on top of the other two implants only on the right jaw. So not only did I now have THREE implants on the right versus the two on the left, but my right jaw, previously SMALLER than the left, was now BIGGER. Moreover, it projected outward in a most unnatural way, protruding out into an angular “point”. This pointed structure was so sharp and so close beneath the skin that, over time, it began to cut into the flesh from the inside, leading to the serious infections referred to earlier. The next few weeks therefore saw me receiving a multitude of treatments including antibiotic IVs and localized injections of antibiotics—on top of taking antibiotics orally. It was an aggressive approach to fighting infections that were so serious, I had to take a two-month medical leave from work (which decimated my sick leave for the year and had disastrous effects on my finances). Moreover, Dr. Lee began paying my hotel bill to keep me close by for my almost daily check-up’s and treatments at this time. I also needed to stay in the area for the hyperbaric oxygen therapy treatments that he was sending me to, treatments that might help me heal from the infections that, through his surgical practices, he had caused. As much as I was hoping the sessions in the hyperbaric chamber, the antibiotic combination therapy, and other treatments would do the trick, the infections in my right jaw continued, the infectio