Complaint Review: Pino Plastic Surgery

This is to tel anyone thinking about going to Dr Ronald Pino in San Jose, Costa Rica for any Plastic Suugery to Please, please do not go.

I went in September 2009 and he completely botch the surgery that I paid almost $10,000 for.  I am very blessed to be alive. 

This is not the first time I have reported him, but it keeps disappearing.  So I keep posting, hoping I can save one person from going what I went had to suffer and and almost 17 months later I am still suffering and have scars for life.

I had a complete face lift or was suppose to, a forehead lift, and an arm lift, and a chemical peel around my mouth.

Here is what he did to me.

He left a very large piece of gauze in my head and sewed it up. 3 months later it had slide down into my forehead area and a surgeon here in the US could see the imprint and thanks to God he cut it out and I lived.  He said I could have died easy from an infection. I have a horrible scar on my forehead now and will have to live with it because I don't have the money they charge to do skin grafts.  

When I woke up after surgery I had a hugh hemotoma on my forehead.  I have no idea how he gave me that. 

He did a chemical peel around my mouth and did like 3rd degree burns.  This can never be fixed for no amount of money.  I have seen 4 plastic surgeons in the US and they all say nothing can fix it.  I certainly can't get lazer again they said, that just burns more.  I have tried every kind of cream on the market for 17 months and nothing helps. 

He also did a botch arm lift.  Just horrible looking and hurts.  It looks like I have a golf ball at the elbow area and I never had anything like that before the surgery.  Also I have loads of wrinkled skin all the way down to my hands now.  I had the arm lift ONLY because I had just a little loose skin just under the arms.  Most people never even noticed it and couldn't understand why I wanted it fixed that it just wasn't that bad.  Now it's horrible looking.  

I use to just wear sleeves halfway down to my elbows, now I have to wear all long sleeves.  Wouldn't  have every traded what I had for what I got.

This has been nothing but a nightmare.  I have had 3 MRI of my head trying to find out if he left anything else in my head.  I have terrible pain/pressure in my head and forehead.  I live on serious pain pills every day to just get by. I have to go to pain management for treatment and I have no Insurance and haven't been able to work since all that happened. No coverage for the MRI either.

The doctors have told me here that in Costa Rica they don't use the same type of gauze that is required to be used in the USA.  Here we use the kind that if left inside the body would show up on x rays because of a strip that is on it.  There is not used at all.

There are other things that happen but I have mentioned the worst.  To think I left the Good old USA to go out of the country to save a little money to have this happen and now has cost me more than if I had stayed here and had surgeries that cost more than triple would still have saved me money in the long run and all the health problems I now have and the scars.  Just so unfair.

I have tried over and over to contact him about the problems and he want answer me at all.  He sent one email the day I came home and has refused to answer anymore.  I sent him pictures, even pictures of the gauze the plastic surgeon here took out of my forehead and he still didn't answer me.  I made sure he was getting them, because I forward everything I sent him to his office staff's email also.

His office staff a young lady named Roxanne is like his office manager and none of them had a problem answering emails from me before I went and as I got the information to deposit all the money in the bank account.  I paid every penny a full month before I ever went.

I know Dr Ronald Pino should not be operating on anyone, not even an animal.  I think he has serious problems with his eyes too.   I think a lot of what happen to me was due to his bad eye sight.  He needs to retire.  He is a really OLD man.  He looks younger on the Internet and he wears a wig and very, very, thick glasses.  You can't tell all this from his picture on the Internet.

Also I am almost 100% he is not Board Certified for the USA like he claims.  He may have been 25 years ago when he had a practice in Miami FL.  He more than likely was disbarred in FL but because he had been gone to Costa Rica so long I couldn't find that out.  Also I did find out that even when he had a practice in Miami he still had his patiences go to Costa Rica for the surgery.  Something just not right about that too.

I hope and honestly pray this helps anyone even considering going there to not do it.  Just stay home,  pay a little more, or have less done.  Anything but leave the country.  And don't even consider ever going by yourself like I did no matter where you go or what doctor you may choose.

Dr Pino knew I was along.  He had promised me and his staff did that as soon as surgery was over they would call my family in the US to tell them how I was.  They didn't.  Also the hotel I stayed at had a nurse and she came up there to see me and they wouldn't let her in.  She came twice and they never alllow her to see me.  There wasn't nothing she could do.  She was a family member, however I doubt they would have allowed that either.  They knew they had messed up and didn't wnat anyone to see me and he only saw me for less than one minute when I went back after the 3rd day when I was in bad shape and again when I went back one week later to get stiches/staples out.  He had his nurse try and take care of me.  I left there with staples in my arms and missed stiches in my forehead and flew back around 4.5 hours in horrible pain.  I had to pay a doctor here to take the stiches out.  Now knowing he has also left gauze in my head.

Please take my advise don't go to Ronald Pino in San Jose, Costa Rica or anywhere he may move to.