A plastic surgeon in Ohio had her medical license revoked and has been banned from practicing in the state after she botched surgeries on three patients while livestreaming on TikTok, according to the Ohio Medical Board.
From 2018 to 2022, Dr. Katharine Grawe, known as “Dr. Roxy,” amassed thousands of followers on TikTok, where the doctor would often livestream her procedures and answer questions from her followers while patients were under the knife. Grawe was banned from practicing in Ohio and fined $4,500 for failing to meet the standard of care, WCMH reported.
A member of the Ohio Medical Board said at a hearing in Columbus on Wednesday that Grawe prioritized her social media clout above the well-being of her patients.
“I strongly recommend that there never be a Dr. Roxy or patient one, two or three — and protect the people of the state of Ohio from this reckless physician,” said board member Dr. Jonathan Feibel.
Mary Jenkins, one of Grawe’s former patients who successfully sued the doctor in 2019 after tissue from her breast reconstruction died, hopes the board’s decision will offer some closure to victims like her.
“It will never go away,” Jenkins said, “because every time we look down, we see a scar and we will always remember.”
The board said Grawe was warned as early as 2018 about privacy concerns regarding her filming of the procedures often located in intimate areas. Grawe’s license was temporarily suspended last October before the board completely stripped it away.
At the Wednesday hearing, Grawe said she filmed her surgeries “to make people smile in a world that is negative and difficult to navigate” but added that she now understands “many of those silly videos appeared unprofessional.”
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According to a notice from the medical board, another one of Grawe’s patients suffered a perforated intestine one week after her surgery that the TikTok doctor performed while livestreaming for her followers. That patient also had severe bacterial damage in her abdomen and lost brain function due to the amount of toxins in her blood, the notice said, according to the Associated Press.
“These outcomes were not normal complications like those that exist in the routine practice of medicine, but were rather caused by recklessness and disregard for the rules governing the practice of medicine in Ohio,” Feibel said.