GREENWOOD VILLAGE, Colo. — At this moment, anyone can walk into the office of Dr. Geoffrey Kim, a plastic surgeon, to be seen. He's accepting new patients at his Greenwood Village office even though he is awaiting sentencing for attempted reckless manslaughter, a class 5 felony.
"When I first heard of this news, it was very frustrating," said Jordan Grosgebauer, an attorney with Denver Trial Attorneys.
Grosgebauer was one of the lawyers for the family of 18-year-old Emmalyn Nguyen. In 2019, Nguyen went to Dr. Kim for a breast augmentation surgery. Nguyen started having problems and showing signs of cardiac arrest during surgery— despite this, Kim did not call 911 for more than five hours.
Nguyen eventually died.
"You know, I can't imagine the pain that they're going through that they continue to suffer on a daily basis," said Grosgebauer.
Earlier this year, Kim was convicted of the felony manslaughter charge and obstruction of telephone service, a misdemeanor. He is being sentenced on Nov. 16.
In the meantime, the Colorado Medical Board reached an interim agreement with Kim to allow him to continue seeing patients as long as he discloses that he was convicted of these charges in written form.
Grosgebauer believes Dr. Kim's license should be suspended by the medical board based on how he handled Nguyen's situation. Since it's not, she believes potential patients should be given more information than just the charges and conviction.
"Allowing the community and patients to have full access to what ultimately occurred in the Emmalyn Nguyen case," said Grosgebauer.
The agreement signed by Kim states he can also tell patients that he "disputes the guilty verdict" as long as he plans to appeal or is engaged in the appeals process.
"Allowing him to be able to put in there the caveat of 'I’m appealing this,' or 'I don’t agree with the conviction,' in my opinion, does not provide an accurate picture to patients," Grosgebauer said.
A spokesperson representing the Colorado Medical Board sent us an email which reads, in part: "Given that the practice agreement is an interim action, the board may still take further action once its investigation is complete."
Grosgebauer said this is not good enough for the Nguyen family— and it's not good enough for potential patients of Dr. Kim.
"I think it's very rare that doctors end up with criminal charges, or criminal convictions in this particular case, and even rarer that they continue to be allowed to practice pending sentencing," said Grosgebauer.
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