TikTok-streaming surgeon accused of botching procedures for years before license revoked

As many as 14 women have claimed harm or permanent disfigurement at the hands of former plastic surgeon-turned social media influencer “Dr. Roxy” since the Ohio Medical Board stripped the embattled TikTok physician of her license earlier this month. 

Dr. Katharine Roxanne Grawe, who livestreamed procedures on TikTok, faced lawsuits from at least 14 women over the past decade and allegedly botched the surgeries of countless other women who have come forward, according to Franklin and Delaware County databases in Ohio.

Mary Jenkins, a cancer survivor left with a gaping hole in her chest after Grawe botched her breast reconstruction in 2012, waited to confront the doctor outside the boardroom after her license was revoked on July 12.

She posted a video of their encounter to a private Facebook group of nearly 3,000 members dedicated to exposing the viral doctor’s medical negligence and providing support for her victims. 

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“It’s been a long time coming!” she captioned the video, in which Grawe can be seen glancing up to say “Hi, Mary” before quickly walking away from trailing reporters.  

“I wanted my face to be the first she saw when she left the ruling!” 

In October 2012, long before racking up more than 800,000 TikTok followers and a spate of lawsuits behind the scenes, Grawe introduced herself after Jenkins delivered a presentation about her charity, Christians Overcoming Cancer. According to court documents, Grawe suggested that “maybe God wanted me to do [Jenkins’] reconstruction.”

“Charismatic was an understatement – that’s what got us together,” Jenkins told Fox.

Less than a month later, Jenkins went under the knife. After less than a day, the new breast made from her abdominal tissue was huge, purple and engorged with blood, according to her lawsuit.

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Rather than performing corrective surgery for venous congestion, according to court documents, Grawe told nurses to administer leech therapy – but none of them knew how.

“A friend of mine looked up on YouTube how to do leech therapy – she was the one who put the leeches on,” Jenkins told Fox. 

The breast turned necrotic two days later. Jenkins would spend more than five months in an extended care facility. 

She sued Grawe in 2014 and two years later won a $358,000 jury verdict against the plastic surgeon.

When Jenkins downloaded TikTok in 2021 and began scrolling through videos, she stumbled upon her former surgeon dancing.

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“It took my breath away. ‘She’s doing videos now?’ . . . All the feelings came back of the hurt and the pain. . . . I had no idea she would become TikTok famous,” Jenkins said.

While state health officials were aware of Grawe’s questionable social media presence and accusations of subpar medical care for years, sending letters to the Ohio-based surgeon on October 9, 2018, and September 28, 2021, she continued operating on patients until Oct. 14, 2022, before the initial suspension of her license took effect. 

Concerns cited in the letters included dancing in the operating room, music too loud for medical staff to hear each other over and videos with superimposed flame and heart emojis covering patients’ nipples and genitals.

When asked whether she considered the potential liability of livestreaming surgery, Grawe replied: “Sure, it is a liability, and that’s why I felt like I was being the most transparent surgeon that ever existed.” 

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State medical board Vice President Dr. Jonathan B. Feibel said at the revocation hearing that “Dr. Grawe’s social media was more important to her than the lives of the patients she treated,” and that her online presence “amplified her reckless behavior.” 

When choosing Grawe for their surgeries, nearly all of the women interviewed by Fox shared a similar sentiment to Kelsey Cardinas, a victim who shared her story on TikTok: “if you’re brave enough to livestream surgery, and you’re that transparent, you just assume that she’s not having the issue she was having.”

One anonymous woman suffered a perforated colon – and, ultimately, irreparable loss of brain function and lifelong disability – after Grawe performed her liposuction while livestreaming and “not looking at the patient,” records show.

That woman, who one board member bluntly said “had to remove everything down to her intestines,” said that the experience didn’t “change [her] outlook on cosmetic procedures,” but instead changed her “outlook on how doctors should focus more on their patients [than] social media.”

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“Social media got the best of [Dr. Roxy], and she was worried about . . . quantity, not quality,” she told the Ohio Medical Board. “It just bothers me . . . I mean, [the social media is] what drew me to her.”

Based on Grawe’s own testimony, she carried out approximately 5,500 operations within the past five years. The average American plastic surgeon performs 320 procedures each year, according to The American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery. 

At the “ROXY Plastic Surgery Recovery House” – a private facility about a mile from Grawe’s Powell, Ohio, practice – at least six women suffered complications from infections of five different types of bacteria, according to active lawsuits brought by David Shroyer, Esq., of Colley, Shroyer and Abraham – the same law firm that represented Jenkins in 2014.

“Our experts are saying . . . that there’s a pattern here,” attorney Mollie Slater, of Colley, Shroyer and Abraham, told Fox News Digital. “Our infectious disease expert is saying that there’s a high rate of these infections that you shouldn’t see in healthy young patients . . . there has to be some kind of general practice effecting the sterility of her procedures.”

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Lorraine Mejia, one of the firm’s clients who stayed at the recovery house for nine days following liposuction at Grawe’s practice in October 2021, said she had been told repeatedly by Grawe and her staff that foul-smelling drainage and fevers were just “part of the healing process.”

Several weeks later, she would require surgeries to drain an infected abscess. 

“I have scars, and they’re definitely not pretty,” Mejia told Fox News Digital. “The husband, I don’t even want him to see them . . . I definitely think differently of plastic surgery now.”

Shroyer said that all six patients “feel strongly that one of the reasons that they’re bringing this case is so it doesn’t happen to somebody else.”

“We typically don’t bring cases unless there’s serious physical harm of a permanent nature,” he said. “But we’ve decided to prosecute these cases because of [this] pattern . . . [and to] hope that it has a prophylactic effect in preventing this from happening again.”

In Ohio, medical malpractice suits must be filed within one year of the alleged medical error. 

Grawe’s other alleged victims echoed Mejia’s sentiment that the now disgraced doctor misled them about the typical healing process – leading many to miss Ohio’s year-long window. 

“She always had a way of putting the blame on us when the outcome was bad,” said Sarina Clark. “I had horrible scarring and was told it’s because I have a lot of melanin in my skin and not enough protein.”

“I watched her social media. I was fooled big time” said Faith Hall, a patient whose incisions allegedly popped open after surgery. “She is a monster, and I am glad she can no longer practice.”

Hunter Shkolnik, a malpractice attorney who has represented plaintiffs and defendants in related matters, said that medical malpractice suits overwhelmingly favor physicians.

“At the end of every case, doctors say that they made an error in judgment, and it’s a get-out-of-jail-free card,” he said.

Shkolnik said that approximately 90% of verdicts in gross negligence cases favor doctors rather than their patients. 

Jerica Stewart, communications officer for the State Medical Board of Ohio, said that malpractice suits “may or may not trigger the opening of a complaint.” 

The state regulatory body can only suspend or revoke a doctor’s license, she said, if “an individual has violated Ohio regulation and that individual’s continued practice presents a danger or immediate and serious harm to the public.” 

However, she said, “this legal burden is very high,” to ensure doctors’ constitutional rights.