The man who is medically responsible for Nadya Suleman becoming “Octomom” and having fourteen children that she can’t support through a series of repeated in vitro treatments is finally losing his medical license. The Medical Board of California has said they are revoking Dr. Michael Kamrava’s license in order to protect the public. The revocation takes effect July first.
While many, myself included, find it questionable that Kamrava implanted Suleman with another set of embryos at all, knowing that she already had six children, the act itself isn’t the reason he’s losing his license. His mistake, apparently, was that he implanted Suleman with twelve embryos, which is six times the norm for a woman her age. That’s how she ended up with her famous octupletes.
“While the evidence did not establish (Kamrava) as a maverick or deviant physician, oblivious to standards of care in IVF practice, it certainly demonstrated that he did not exercise sound judgment in the transfer of twelve embryos to (Suleman),” the board said in its 45-page decision.
Usually, fertility doctors don’t implant high numbers of embryos because they want to avoid high number multiple births which put both mother and children at risk of severe complications and developmental delays and death. To date, Suleman’s octuplets are the world’s longest surviving set.
Kamrava, however, seems to have had trouble saying no to patients who wanted more embryos implanted, presumably to increase the chances of a successful pregnancy. Suleman is not the only patient he was found to have endangered by implanting too many embryos. He over implanted another forty eight year old woman who ended up with quadruplets, one of whom died at birth, and another woman ended up losing her womb and ovaries to cancer because he became distracted with the Suleman case and failed to follow up on care.
“This is not a one-patient case or a two-patient case; it is a three-patient case and the established causes of discipline include repeated negligent acts,” the board decision reads.
One patient celebrated by partaking in a bikini photo shoot.
