Poor Dr. Jan Adams. The television/publicity loving plastic surgeon complains that his business has gone down the drain since he operated on Kanye West’s mother Donda, who died at her home the next day. While her autopsy results were inconclusive, most people seem to agree that Adams bears some culpability. West consulted another plastic surgeon for her breast reduction (which was a medical necessity due to back pain) and tummy tuck. Both of the other surgeons refused to do the surgery, stating that West had to see an internist before he would consider doing the surgery since she had a condition that could cause a heart attack. However Adams was more than fine with operating on West. While Donda was obviously aware of the first surgeon’s concerns and still went ahead with surgery, Dr. Adams had a duty not to operate on her if he was aware of her condition – which a good doctor would be.

As a result of Donda West’s death, a lot of publicity was focused on Jan Adams, and it quickly came to light that he has a long history of legal problems, including charges of domestic violence, DUI arrests, tax evasion and malpractice suits. And the malpractice suits are legitimate –he once left a sponge inside a patient, and only put one breast implant in other. Last night Adams went on Larry King to complain about the way his practice has suffered as a result of all the negative publicity.

KING: Do you continue to practice?

ADAMS: Yes.

KING: How bad has your practice been affected by this publicity?

ADAMS: Horribly. It’s almost destroyed.

KING: Is that surprising to you?

ADAMS: It surprises me because I have to ask myself, when people attack you like that — I’m talking the press — you have to say, why do they fear you? Generally, people attack someone who they fear. And I’m not sure where all that came from. I do know we got bad information. The real question out there really isn’t, from where I look at, this particular patient. The real question out there is, who is this person and why is this kind of attack going on?

[From Larry King Live]

Hey Dr. Adams, I don’t think people fear you, I think they loathe you. It’s just easier to think they fear you, because that implies that you have some sort of power over everyone. People generally don’t like the idea of a DUI-getting, girlfriend-hitting, sponge-leaving doctor. So when you’re in some way connected to the death of a famous hip hop star’s mother, and then people find out you’ve got a long history of doing jackass things, they’re going to dislike you. Though the autopsy findings made it pretty hard to say Adams was directly responsible for West’s death, one would think he’d realize it’s a bad idea to go on national television and complain about how hard this has been for him. I’m guessing it’s harder for the West family. There’s a good chance Dr. Adams will lose his board certification due to his myriad legal and medical run-ins. It’s not the justice a lot of people would like, but it will hopefully keep him from operating on anyone else.