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Steven Hoefflin

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Steven M. Hoefflin is an American plastic surgeon, known for providing plastic surgery to celebrities including Michael Jackson, Joan Rivers, and Elizabeth Taylor. Hoefflin has published articles in books and medical journals and has been in private practice in aesthetic plastic surgery in Santa Monica, California since the 1980s.[1]

Career

UCLA Medical Center

In 1972, Hoefflin graduated in the top of his class from the UCLA Medical School. He continued his education in general surgery and completed a residency training program at the UCLA Medical Center.[1]

Hoefflin became Assistant Clinical Professor of UCLA Medical Center in 1979. In 1989, he was promoted to Associate Clinical Professor, which he served until 2003.

Hoefflin served as Chief of Plastic Surgery at the UCLA Santa Monica Hospital Medical Center from 1982 until 1989; served as Chief of Plastic Surgery at Brotman Medical Center from 1980 to 1985;[1] and is Past President of the Los Angeles Society of Plastic Surgeons.[1]

Celebrity plastic surgeon

Hoefflin has carried out cosmetic surgery on numerous celebrities, performing a skin graft to Jackson’s scalp after the singer was burnt during the filming of a Pepsi commercial in 1984.[2] In 1979, Jackson had his first rhinoplasty after breaking his nose during a complex dance routine. The surgery was not a complete success, and Jackson complained of breathing difficulties that would affect his career. He was referred to Dr. Hoefflin, who performed Jackson's second rhinoplasty. However, his longest celebrity client was none other than the 'poster-girl of plastic surgery' Joan Rivers.

Hoefflin performed a breast reduction, tummy tuck, two nose jobs, cheek implants, a browlift, eyelift, two facelifts, and a chemical peel for Phyllis Diller.[2]

Allegations of professional misconduct

In 1997, Hoefflin was accused by four former colleagues (Kim Moore-Mestas, Lidia Benjamin, Barbara Maywood and Donna Burton) of unprofessional conduct towards celebrity clients. They alleged that Hoefflin pulled the blanket off a woman while she was unconscious on the operating table, and "spread and lifted her legs in a vulgar manner." Hoefflin's colleagues also claimed that Hoefflin once disrobed a male client, and upon exposing the patient's genitals, stated, "you know, he has never used it." Additionally, Moore-Mestas testified that she witnessed Hoefflin's "touching of patients in a sexual manner."[3]

The former staffers said, in their own sexual harassment suit against the doctor, that Hoefflin tricked Michael Jackson into believing he had received a nose job by putting Jackson under anaesthetic, and then fast-forwarding the clocks;[4] Express elucidates: "Jackson kept returning for so many nasal procedures that Dr Hoefflin would knock him out and hours later claim he had performed surgery rather than damage him with further cutting, according to a lawsuit filed by four nurses against the surgeon in the mid-Nineties."[5] The four said that upon Elizabeth Taylor's arriving for a face-lift, Hoefflin stripped her naked and described her as "the old stuff".[4] The four former staffers of Hoefflin signed a letter stating that the suit was a working draft that was "inadvertently filled" and that its allegations "were without sufficient factual or legal basis."[6] The Medical Board of California found no evidence of wrong-doing by Hoefflin.[7] According to Hoefflin, in August 2001, the four former employees who originally made the allegations issued apology letters to Hoefflin and paid a cash settlement.[8]

Hoefflin said that Dr. James Hurvitz and Dr. Wallace Goodstein who were renting office space at his Santa Monica, California office and had filed charges against Hoefflin, were addicted to prescription drugs.[3][9] Hoefflin filed a lawsuit for $20 million against the two doctors for defamation.[9]

Client list

Personal life

Hoefflin married his first wife, Linda Manus, while still in college. They had two sons, Jeff and Brad, before divorcing in 1976. Hoefflin stated that as a doctor building a practice, "I just did not have time to nurture a relationship." Brad, who suffers from a degenerative neurological disease, lives with Hoefflin and his second wife, Pamela Wilson, at their home in Bel Air.[2]

Hoefflin is an avid sky diver and vegetarian who, in 1996, bared his torso in a bodybuilding magazine.[2]

References

  1. ^ a b c d http://www.hoefflin.com/
  2. ^ a b c d e "Under scrutiny", People.com.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i "Knives are out for star surgeon". NY Daily News. October 27, 1997.
  4. ^ a b "The ugly face of beauty". The Independent.
  5. ^ Sheridan, Dr. Peter (July 1, 2009). "The cosmetic surgery addict (IN DAY three of our brilliant series we reveal the depths of the singer's obsession with going under the knife because he didn't want to look like his father - even after doctors warned him his face was falling apart...)". Express.
  6. ^ https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1998/01/06/ex-staffers-to-testify-in-probe-of-doctor/2e8e7e81-d0bd-4ebe-82af-85d67dbe1265/
  7. ^ http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,620098,00.html
  8. ^ "Plastic Surgeon Dr. Steven M. Hoefflin is Cleared and Vindicated of All Legal Claims Against Him". The Hoefflin Center for Plastic Surgery.
  9. ^ a b O'Neill, Ann W. (November 12, 1997). "Doctor Files Suits Alleging Defamation". The Los Angeles Times.
  10. ^ a b c "Of livers, hearts, kidneys — and Don Johnson's organ". The Independent.
  11. ^ "Elvis, Marilyn Monroe... John Travolta?". MSNBC.
  12. ^ "Facing the music". Time Magazine.

Bibliography

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