Complaint Review: Dr. Russell Kridel - Houston Texas

Dr. Kridel did a primary rhinoplasty on me years ago, and the results were life-wrecking!  My nose was left strangely misshapen and crooked.  The left side had apparently collapsed and pulled the right side of the nose to the left (according to my revision surgeon).

When I called Kridel's office after the swelling had gone down, I was crying all the time.  Everyone at Kridel's office seemed like they could not care less.  At one point I called to get an appointment, and the receptionist said she would check the scheduling books and call me back.  She didn't call me back.  So I sent a letter asking for an appointment, again no response.  So I sent another letter.  Finally they agreed to let me come in.  When I came in, I arrived on time but had to wait 1.5 hours to speak to Dr. Kridel.

He then pretty rudely indicated that he didn't think he could fix my nose, but maybe he might do another surgery on it.  I called after this appointment to get more info about another surgery, but again my call was not returned.  I finally wrote an angry letter when it was clear that Dr. Kridel had messed up my face majorly, and he was going to keep all my money and do nothing to help me fix the damage he had done.  He responded with a weird letter saying that he would not help me because he couldn't "communicate" with me. 

He also seemed to blame me for the damage to my nose because I had asked for only a minor change to my nose and apparently he could not safely do minor changes -- but he had never told me that beforehand or else I obviously would not have gone forward with the surgery.  He also said my nose after his surgery looked more "refined" and the crookedness was within a normal range of variance for noses.  Everyone else who ever saw it told me they were shocked by how much of a change for the worse he had made.

I kept close track of all these things because I wanted to sue Kridel.  But the attorneys I called told me that because I had waited a year for the swelling to go down before judging the nose (as I'd been told to do), I had missed the one-year statute of limitations for filing a lawsuit against Kridel. 

The other surgeons I met with about a revision rhinoplasty sometimes told me that Kridel is not really very respected among those in-the-know.  He's mainly great at marketing himself.  Reviews I've written on other websites have been mysteriously deleted, so I believe it.  Also, Kridel is an ENT -- not a board certified plastic surgeon, which some people would tell you is the only specialist that people should hire to do plastic surgery (there's a lot of debate about that subject in the medical community).

I just hope now I can help warn other people so they won't experience the nightmare that I did with this office.  Also, remember Kridel did a primary rhinoplasty on me.  Revision rhinoplasties are much harder.  So if he messed up my simpler operation, I would hate to see his more complicated operations.

One more thing I think people considering him should know - Dr. Kridel has a fellowship program in his office that he uses to train fellows (also called surgeons in training).  The fellowship is set up through the AAFPRS.  If you look on the AAFPRS website, you can find some interesting information about these fellowship programs.  A friend of mine is currently suing the AAFPRS because she believes her plastic surgeon (not Kridel) let his AAFPRS fellow operate on her without her knowledge or consent.