BURIEN, Wash. — After a two-day hearing in March, the Washington Medical Commission (WMC) issued a final ruling, suspending the medical license of Burien cosmetic surgeon Kristine Brecht for five years.
The WMC ruled Brecht violated the conditions of an Agreed Order she signed in 2021. The order allowed her to keep her medical license but prevented her from performing “any procedures that require sedation.”
She was also ordered to “cease and desist” performing surgeries in her unlicensed same day surgery center.
State investigators found Brecht did not abide by the orders by performing several “complex” plastic surgeries with sedation in her unlicensed surgery center in 2022. They included tummy tucks, fat transfers, breast augmentations and liposuction.
Brecht appealed a Summary Action Order of September 2022, which ordered her to cease practicing as a physician or surgeon. The commission found one of her cases in 2019 led to the death of 54-year-old Shannon Etter of West Seattle. Investigators wrote Brecht cased “severe harm or death to a human patient.”
In the appeal, Brecht testified she believed performing the procedures did not violate the agreed order because she used a Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist to administer sedation in procedures that didn’t technically require sedation, according to legal documents.
The commission did not agree with Brecht. They found her acts of violating the agreed order were “intentional,” and that she lacked “remorse,” or “awareness the conduct was wrong.”
“The end result is good and it really is a great relief,” said Mary Frances Duggan, the mother of Shannon Etter. “How many more people could she hurt? If she was allowed to continue, especially since she never admitted that she did anything wrong. You just can’t do that. You’re dealing with people’s lives. And you just cannot do things you’re not qualified to do.”
A 2021 KING 5 investigation found the WMC received at least 17 complaints about the doctor. In several cases the state found violations for her use of anesthesia. Instead of using general anesthesia or IV sedation, Brecht relied on pills like oxycodone, Ambien and lorazepam, even for high-risk surgeries, with no anesthesiologist in the room.
“At no time do I believe that I put any patients at risk,” Dr. Brecht wrote in 2020. “None of the patients in (the state’s case) suffered injuries as a result of my care and treatment.”
Samantha Blankenship, age 33 of Burien, went to Dr. Brecht in 2021 for liposuction, before the license restriction. She said Brecht gave her several oxycontin and a “handful of other pills,” for the procedure that left her feeling “out of it” for three days.
“It was pretty horrific. Nobody should have that much medication in their system,” Blankenship said. “I felt like I was overdosed. It was scary because I felt like I could have died having all that medication in my system.”
Like other patients who spoke with KING 5, Blankenship thought Brecht was a board-certified plastic surgeon. She was shocked when finding Brecht’s specialty is family practice medicine.
“I thought she was a plastic surgeon because of everything on her website made it seem like that,” Blankenship said. “I’m absolutely horrified. I’m a single mom. If something would happen to me what would my kids do? I’m angry. That angers me that this has happened so many times and happened to me.”
Brecht can apply to have her medical license reinstated in five years, with several additional rules. One of them mandates Dr. Brecht must change her website to make it clear she is not a plastic surgeon, but a board-certified family medicine doctor. The commission wrote her marketing practices were “potentially misleading to patients.”
“Lots of people fell for that, and my daughter died,” Duggan said. “It’s just been really, really difficult to think that this had to happen.”
Brecht cannot operate a solo practice again and will also have “strict monitoring and oversight of her practice by the WA Medical Commission indefinitely,” according to the WMC.
“People really, really do need to do their homework (about medical providers),” Duggan said.