Sacramento Area Local News

by Kurtis Ming
(CBS13) What I hold in my hand is something so many families have been fighting for. For years, Dr. Brian West battled an alcohol problem. Several patients he treated in the same time frame ended up injured. It wasn't until our investigation that the California State Medical Board launched its own.

Now the state has taken its first step toward possibly taking away this doctor's license to practice.

We found multiple women he operated on, like Tina Minasian, Becky Anderson and Ken Mickulecky's late wife, Sharon, who claim the charming plastic surgeon they trusted their lives left them battling massive painful flesh eating infections that lasted for months.
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"This man has altered all of our lives and it's horrific," said Anderson.

When we first met Becky Anderson, we quickly learned it's her infectious laugh, and family, keeping her going.

She went to Dr. West for a breast reconstructive surgery in 1999, and says her flesh eating infection kept her from getting the cancer treatment she needed. The cancer spread, and now she's stage 4. She had more than a dozen surgeries that left her disfigured.

"This is what I have now. My intestines covered by a skin graft," said Anderson.

In Anderson's final operation, Dr. West removed muscle from her leg. Something, she says, she told him not to do.

"What he did was a crime. A doctor can't go in and do what he wants. How does a woman deal with this type of body?" said Anderson.

Back in the fall of 2005 Ken Mickulecky told me his late wife Sharon battled a year long infection in 2000.

"She was extremely special to me," said Mickulecky

It also forced her to go without cancer treatment. Her cancer also spread, and he couldn't believe how Dr. West treated her.

"He stuck his finger without a glove in my wife's wound. When he came into examine her, she said he smelled like he's got alcohol on his breath. I said 'doctors wouldn't do that'," said Mickulecky

Tina Minasian underwent a 7 1/2 hour long procedure in the fall of 2002. Instead of being kept overnight for observation, Dr. West sent her home. She became infected and says she ended up disfigured.

"I look like a monster, this scarring is awful," said Minasian.

In our year-and-a-half-long investigation, we've turned up more than 30 patients with complaints about Dr. Brian West. Now, the state has just filed an accusation. The California Sate Medical Board and the Attorney General claim he was negligent treating Becky, Sharon, Tina, and three other patients.

Dr. West is also accused of lying to a state medical board investigator about a DUI crash.

A year ago we first reported Dr. West's blood alcohol level was .19 back in 2000 when he crashed his car on I-80. Dr. West was on his way to the hospital to treat Becky Anderson, but ended up going to jail instead. A state investigator claims Dr. West told her he was headed to his office that day to do paperwork.

Dr. West has refused our requests for an interview, and ran from us when we tried to confront him in September outside his office in long beach, where he's been working as a plastic surgeon. But Dr. West won't be able to out-run a state judge who will decide if he deserves the right to continue treating patients.

For Ken Mickulecky, this case is ground gained in a battle he's fighting for his late wife Sharon.

"She's probably just crying and loving it. Finally some justice," said Mickulecky.

Dr. West has already been sentenced to probation after the medical board learned he lied about his drinking problem. Now his license could be suspended or even revoked.

This process is a long one. It could be the fall, before dr. West appears before a judge. In the meantime, he continues to treat patients in southern California.

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