SCULPT cosmetic surgical facility closes amid growing malpractice scandal against its medical director

Dr. Gerard Stanley Jr. has abruptly shut down
his surgical clinic on Friday amid numerous
claims of medical malpractice by former patients

The controversial Omaha-based family practitioner at the center of fifteen medical malpractice lawsuits for performing botched cosmetic surgical procedures has quietly and abruptly shut down his cosmetic surgical center for good on Friday, according to a letter he posted to his patients on the surgical center's website.

In that letter, Dr. Gerard Stanley Jr. wrote that that he has closed down his SCULPT Contemporary Cosmetic Surgical Center effective as of Friday, October 13, 2017, but he will "remain in the community" for his patients should they need anything.

Dr. Stanley stated that his surgical patients have his personal cell phone number, and they are welcome to contact him should they have any questions or need continued care or referrals to another cosmetic surgeon.

Stanley stated that he has refunded prepaid fees on every surgical appointment reservation SCULPT has on file, but encourages anyone he might have missed to contact the clinic.

He, however, also said, in the same breath, that two of his associates will continue to see some of his cosmetic surgical patients at his father's clinic, Time Health Clinic, on West Maple Road for certain other cosmetic procedures such as Botox, Xeomin, Dysport, dermal fillers, laser treatments, microneedling and dermaplaning.

8 more women come forward to file suit against Omaha family practitioner for botched cosmetic surgeries

Family physician Gerard Stanley of the Sculpt Contemporary Cosmetic Surgery Clinic

Eight more women have come forward to file medical malpractice lawsuits alleging medical malpractice against an Omaha family practitioner and his cosmetic surgery clinic.

The victims all claim Dr. Gerard J. Stanley Jr. had misrepresented his credentials as a "board-certified" surgeon, qualified to perform cosmetic and plastic surgery.

The eight new suits allege that the victims had suffered similar outcomes of disfigurement, permanent scarring and pain after undergoing the knife that seven previous suits had claimed back in August at the hands of Dr. Stanley and his Sculpt Cosmetic Surgery Clinic.

Stanley now faces a total of 15 medical malpractice lawsuits against him in Douglas County District Court.

Medical malpractice lawsuit filed against Omaha family practitioner for botched cosmetic surgeries

Family Practitioner, Dr. Gerard Stanley, pictured above at his cosmetic surgery center in Omaha, Nebraska

Another Omaha-area doctor and his cosmetic surgery clinic are facing charges of medical malpractice in numerous civil lawsuits filed by at least seven former patients a week ago.
   

Advertisement from Dr. Stanley's Sculpt surgery center

Dr. Gerard J. Stanley Jr., a family practitioner by trade and not a board certified plastic surgeon, was named as the defendant in civil lawsuits filed by seven women who claimed they were severely scarred and disfigured after receiving botched cosmetic surgical procedures from Stanley at his West Omaha clinic, Sculpt Contemporary Cosmetic Surgery LLC.

Omaha attorney James Martin Davis, who represent the seven women and two spouses, filed the civil medical malpractice lawsuits on behalf of the victims in Douglas County District Court filed last week.

The women allege they went into the cosmetic surgery center run by Dr. Stanley for a variety of elective cosmetic surgical procedures, including liposuction, buttocks lifts, breast augmentations, and eye lifts within the last two years, thinking Dr. Stanley was a board-certified plastic surgeon.

Dark secrets in Dallas, part I: Nebraska Medicine's PM&R chairman and his hidden past of Medicare fraud in Texas

Dr. Samuel Bierner during his time at Parkland Hospital
and UT Southwestern when the feds, news media, and  
medical board were coming down on him and four other 
UTSW PM&R faculty members over charges of Medicare 
fraud and patient endangerment

In September of 2016, we uncovered a very big scandal brewing at Nebraska Medicine involving its recently appointed chairman of its fledgling Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation department (PM&R), Dr. Samuel Michael Bierner of Elkhorn, and his secretive, dark and enigmatic history, back at his old haunts at Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas, Texas.

Parkland is best known as the hospital where President John F. Kennedy was brought after he had been fatally shot in the head by a sniper's bullet on November 23, 1963 in Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas.

Kennedy died shortly after arriving at the hospital, and it is no secret that the Kennedy's top aides and Secret Service detail had a very violent tussle with Parkland's medical staff in the aftermath of the President's death over who had legal jurisdiction over performing an autopsy on the President's body. (See video below on Parkland the movie.)

From what we have learned since those articles about Dr. Bierner last September and October from our inside sources, what we've shown so far is only the tip of the iceberg on his deeply troubled past as a physician in Texas, which included an on-going investigation by the state's medical board.

As Madonna Rehab Hospitals holds grand opening of its new Omaha campus, controversy still swirls around new UNMC PM&R chairman's troubled past in Texas

A little over two years after breaking ground on Sept. 4, 2014, construction on Madonna Rehabilitation Hospitals new $93 million campus in Omaha is now officially completed, and the hospital is ready for business.

Madonna's grand opening celebration on Thursday kicked off with
only one glitch on Thursday: How will they address UNMC
founding PM&R chairman Dr. Samuel Bierner's (seen on
the left) scandalous past?

So hospital officials hosted a private grand opening event and ribbon-cutting ceremony Thursday for the Omaha metro area's first and only hospital dedicated entirely to rehab care at its newest location across from the Village Pointe Shopping Center at 17500 Burke Street, located just south of 175th and Dodge.

Self-guided tours were provided to former patients, Madonna staff, and state and local dignitaries who attended the grand opening event on Thursday morning.

Just before the ground breaking on the new facilities in 2014, Madonna Rehabilitation Specialty Hospital opened a 32-bed unit on the fourth floor of Nebraska Medicine-Bellevue to address the acute inpatient rehab needs of hospitalized patients with complex medical conditions who were ready to be discharged from the hospital but not quite ready to take care of themselves at home.

Madonna plans on merging the 32-bed unit at Bellevue into its new campus after the Omaha campus officially opens.

Texas Medical Board investigation about Kowalske, Bierner, Gabriel, Hudak, and Knapton by Michel Schwalbe

Exclusive: UNMC's new chairman of PM&R has a dark, troubled history of Medicare fraud, patient endangerment, and medical board investigations

The September 2016 issue of Strictly Business featuring the new Madonna Rehab Hospital set to open in October 2016

Links and References have been updated!

Last February, we covered a story about the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC) creating a new physical medicine & rehabilitation (PM&R) program at the Nebraska Medical Center.

UNMC's newly appointed founding chairman of their newly
created physical medicine & rehabilitation program, Samuel
Bierner, has a dark, shady, and very troubling history with
Medicare fraud, patient safety issues, and investigations
from the Texas Medical Board, according to the public
record, including Dallas' leading daily newspaper

PM&R, or physiatry as it is also known as, is a rather obscure and relatively unknown medical specialty that cares for patients with disabling conditions, including traumatic brain injuries, spinal cord injuries, strokes, neurological impairments, and musculoskeletal problems, who are medically stable, but otherwise have some therapeutic, equipment, or other prosthetic needs to take care of themselves after being discharged from the hospital.

In essence, it's a field of medicine that doesn't deal in urgent life or death matters like most other medical specialties, which may explain why it's relatively obscure and unknown to most people in the first place.

In that article, UNMC officials announced they had selected a Dallas-based physiatrist, Dr. Samuel Michael Bierner, as the new founding chairman of UNMC's new PM&R program in Omaha, Nebraska.

Bierner has more than 25 years experience in physiatry and had previously served as the residency director of the PM&R program at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas (UTSW) since 2005 and medical director of Parkland Memorial Hospital's PM&R department with what appeared to be a immaculate record; however, we were given an anonymous news tip that there was more than meets the eye to Dr. Bierner's past than he had revealed to UNMC officials when he landed the prestigious job to head their fledgling PM&R program back in February.

Unbeknownst to UNMC officials, the new chairman of their PM&R department was charged in 2012 by the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) in a federal court in the Northern District of Texas of conspiring with four other fellow UT Southwestern PM&R faculty members of defrauding federal and state programs with "thousands" of false billings to Medicare and Medicaid that endangered the lives of patients, and later, he made false statements to the medical board saying he was "exonerated of all the charges of fraud" when in fact he wasn't.

U.S.A., ex rel John Doe v. Parkland, Samuel Bierner, Karen Kowalske, Vincent Gabriel, Anne Hudak, and Susan... by Michel Schwalbe