An Atlanta cosmetic surgeon who has battled medical malpractice lawsuits over more than two decades is now being sued by four patients who claim he left their faces permanently damaged and disfigured.
Harvey “Chip” Cole is accused of breaching the standard of care in surgeries he performed on four Georgia patients at Northside Hospital facilities in Atlanta and Sandy Springs between February 2022 and January 2023. Cole and his Buckhead employer, Oculus Plastic Surgery, deny the allegations.
“He made promises to fix things and all he did was create problems and permanent injury,” said Alex Seay, an attorney for the plaintiffs. “What he did cannot be undone.”
Scott Bailey, an attorney for Cole and Oculus, said Cole believes he complied with every reasonable medical standard of care in each of the cases. Bailey said Cole has performed thousands of procedures on patients without complication in his 35-year career.
“He prioritizes patient safety and satisfaction and has dedicated his professional life to the specialty of facial and oculoplastic surgery,” Bailey said. “It is a basic tenet of cosmetic surgery that each patient’s anatomy is distinct and there are known complications that are rare but well-recognized.”
The four plaintiffs live in Georgia and each filed lawsuits in the Fulton County State Court. The cases include claims against Northside, alleging it negligently credentialed Cole to perform surgeries at its locations and has since revoked his privileges.
A Northside representative declined to comment on the cases. In the first of the cases filed, Northside is appealing Judge Wesley Tailor’s Sept. 16 decision allowing the claims against it to proceed.
That case was lodged in February by Kayla Cannon, who says she was operated on by Cole at Northside’s Peachtree Dunwoody Outpatient Surgery Center in February and June of 2022.
Cannon claims Cole cut too much tissue from her eyelids, damaged her eye muscles and failed to remove cheek implants after infection set in. Her complaint states that she received corrective treatment from other physicians, but has permanent injuries as a result of Cole’s negligence, including deformity, scarring and impaired eyesight.
Credit: Supplied
Credit: Supplied
In case filings, Cole and Oculus said Cannon’s alleged injuries “may have been caused, in whole or in part, by the conduct of others . . . including the plaintiff herself.” They said facts asserted by Cannon “are incomplete and out of context with respect to Ms. Cannon’s medical history, care and treatment, condition, and presentation.”
Cannon said she followed all of Cole’s post-surgery instructions. Her claims are backed up by two plastic surgeons and an ophthalmologist from California, Maryland and Arizona, who each wrote affidavits outlining how Cole violated the standard of care in her case.
“Dr. Cole should not have been credentialed to perform these procedures,” wrote Michael Grant, a plastic surgeon at the University of Maryland Medical Center.
Grant also submitted affidavits against Cole in the three other pending cases, all filed on Sept. 18. Those cases are also assigned to Tailor.
One of the plaintiffs, who asked that her name not be published, alleges Cole damaged her facial nerve, cut too much skin from around her eyes and made asymmetrical incisions. She claims that his surgery, performed at Northside Hospital Atlanta in October 2022, left her partially paralyzed and unable to properly close her eyes or move her mouth.
Credit: Supplied
Credit: Supplied
Another patient who didn’t want her name published claims in a separate lawsuit that Cole damaged her facial nerve and gave her lopsided eyebrows when he operated on her at Northside Hospital Atlanta in September 2022. She said she has to have Botox injections to keep her eyebrows even, and has been treated by other physicians in an attempt to correct the deformities, scarring and damage caused by Cole.
The fourth patient, who didn’t want his name published, alleges in a separate lawsuit that Cole left him deformed and scarred after a January 2023 surgery at a Northside hospital. He claims the surgery comprised procedures that Cole had not previously discussed with him, including cheek implants.
Seay said she hopes the cases lead to action that protects other patients, including by the Georgia Composite Medical Board, which licenses Cole and other physicians in the state.
Jason Jones, the board’s executive director, said lawsuits against doctors don’t trigger board investigations, which are based on complaints to the board. Complaints and investigative records are confidential, Jones said.
Misleading advertising
Cole is listed on Oculus’ website as a “quadruple board-certified Atlanta plastic surgeon,” though his medical license is for ophthalmology, an eye disorder specialty. His license is up for renewal in March 2025.
He is not a member of the Georgia Society of Plastic Surgeons or the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, according to their websites. Cole is certified by the American Board of Facial Cosmetic Surgery, American Board of Ophthalmology, American Board of Laser Surgery and American Board of Cosmetic Surgery, according to his attorney.
Credit: Oculus Plastic Surgery
Credit: Oculus Plastic Surgery
Plastic surgeon Lynn Damitz, the board vice president of health policy and advocacy for the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, said only those who have trained in plastic surgery and been certified by the American Board of Plastic Surgery can, in the purest sense, call themselves plastic surgeons. She said cosmetic surgery is not synonymous with plastic surgery.
“People that don’t have the appropriate training and are promoting themselves as something that they are not or haven’t trained in can lead to patient safety issues, and I think is what we all are concerned about from a public perspective,” she said. “It can be misleading.”
Patients seeking doctors who have passed the most rigorous training and scrutiny should look for certifications by the 24 member boards of the American Board of Medical Specialties, Damitz said. She said there are many other types of certifications that aren’t as well regulated or rigorous.
Previous allegations
Cole has been the subject of medical malpractice lawsuits in Georgia for more than 20 years.
He was accused in the 1999 death of Jeannie Huff, whose blood pressure fatally dropped during an eyebrow lift surgery in his office. Attorney Andy Scherffius represented Huff’s husband in the case that was settled before trial.
Scherffius said Cole had assured Huff that an anesthesiologist would monitor her during the surgery, but that only a nurse anesthetist was present. He said Huff, who was in her 40s, was on life support for several days after Cole’s “botched resuscitation efforts,” then she died.
“After the settlement, we filed a complaint with the state medical board and they dismissed it,” Scherffius said.
Cole successfully defended a 2003 case alleging he left a patient with a sunken eye, numbness, double vision and limited taste and smell. A Fulton County jury cleared Cole of wrongdoing in that case in 2007.
Attorney Adam Malone said he represented a female physician whose face became infected after Cole operated on her using dirty instruments, and that the case was settled mid-trial.
In 2008, Malone won a $1.2 million verdict for another of Cole’s patients and her husband. Marietta real estate agent Betty Nestlehutt was 72 when she had a procedure in 2006, hoping a more youthful appearance would help her stay professionally competitive. Instead, she spent almost a year with large open wounds and was permanently disfigured.
Credit: Supplied
Credit: Supplied
“He literally destroyed the blood supply to both sides of her face and her tissue rotted,” Malone said. “Of all the cosmetic surgeons in the Atlantic area, I receive more calls about Dr. Cole than anybody else.”
Malone said Nestlehutt had wanted laser resurfacing on her face but that Cole talked her into also getting a brow lift, midface lift, lower facelift, chin implant and chemical peel on her chest, neck, arms and hands, enticing her with a multi-procedure discount.
“He told her, ‘I can do that (resurfacing) for you, but that would be like buying new sheets to put on an old mattress. And what you really need is a new mattress and a new set of sheets,’” Malone said. “No reasonable physician would have undertaken to do all of that on a patient of her age and her skin type all at the same time.”
In 2010, the Georgia Supreme Court upheld the Nestlehutt verdict in a landmark ruling that ended the state’s cap on certain damages in medical malpractice cases.
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