A “budget” plastic surgeon in the US who claims to have performed 4 000 procedures – but who has been linked to eight patients’ deaths and several allegations of botched procedures – has approached the court to have his Illinois licence suspension overturned.
The state is seeking a permanent ban on Dr Ayoub Sayeg’s practice, actively pursuing a 2020 complaint linked to one of the deaths, and recently updated to include a 2018 death, and reviewing internal processes to accelerate future disciplinary cases.
Sayeg is now seeking a court injunction in Illinois to lift the suspension and allow him to continue treating patients. A pre-trial hearing regarding the matter begins this Friday.
This is the third state to have suspended him. In August, Virginia issued a mandatory suspension while Michigan followed with a summary suspension last month, also influenced by complaints from two local patients alleging botched 2024 surgeries.
Sayeg has not admitted to any malpractice or negligence, but an earlier Chicago Tribune investigation exposed severe safety and quality concerns linked to his practices.
Records indicate he holds the highest patient death rate in the county. For context, the Tribune reports that it could only find one other area doctor with more than a single patient death since 2015.
Dragging heels
Illinois officials have acknowledged flaws in their investigation, which began after the state received the October 2020 complaint regarding the death of Idalia Corcoles, a 39-year-old Chicago mother of four who died the previous year, shortly after her surgery.
Yahoo reports that her family sued Sayeg and his anaesthesiologist in 2021, and jurors delivered a $56m verdict in late 2024 after a trial.
While the state licensing investigation was pending, three more of his patients died of complications from surgery.
It wasn’t until September 2025, nearly five years after the state began investigating Sayeg in the death of Corcoles, that the department filed its own complaint alleging his conduct violated the Illinois Medical Practice Act.
The department amended its complaint this year to include allegations involving another patient, Crystal Keating (47), who died in November 2018 when Sayeg performed her tummy tuck, liposuction, flankplasty and fat grafting of the buttocks (Brazilian butt lift).
Her estate filed a wrongful death lawsuit, and a trial ended in 2024 with a hung jury. After that, attorneys agreed to almost $1.1m in settlements with the various parties, including the hospital and medical staff who treated Keating.
Illinois officials have pledged to pursue the maximum penalty against Sayeg to bar him permanently from practicing in the state. They also said they will perform an internal review of how the department handled the case and will pursue changes to state laws in the next legislative session to help accelerate the disciplinary process in similar cases.
More suspensions
Citing the Illinois suspension, Virginia issued a mandatory suspension order on 4 August, and Michigan’s suspension was based on that – as well as the complaints from the two local women accusing Sayeg of botching their 2024 surgeries.
Dari Brown said she and her had resorted to costly surgeries with other physicians to try to correct the work by Sayeg, who had done a breast augmentation procedure on her and a facelift and neck lift on her mother.
Authorities say Sayeg failed to maintain “complete, accurate, and timely documentation” in both cases.
Michigan-based Sayeg became licensed there in 2002, where he runs a clinic called Your New Looks. In 2013 he expanded to Illinois, opening 63 Laser & Skin Clinic, and travelling between both states offering tummy tucks, liposuction, breast augmentations, facelifts and other procedures.
In July, the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation temporarily suspended his license, saying that an inspection of his clinic showed he had failed, in part, to meet requirements for delivering anaesthesia-related services in a practice setting.
The inspection came less than two weeks after the Chicago Tribune reported that the state had not disciplined Sayeg despite multiple patient deaths in Illinois. The patients had all died in a seven-year span shortly after their surgeries at his clinic.
Six died from complications of plastic surgery, and the other two overdosed on pain medication at home. Each surgery involved a tummy tuck and at least one other procedure, typically liposuction. The investigation also noted six people – including Brown – had filed complaints since 2004 against the surgeon in Michigan.
See more from MedicalBrief archives:
No bail for fake surgeon charged with woman’s death after implant removal
Celebrity Brazilian plastic surgeon on the run after woman’s death
Woman dies after liposuction procedure as dodgy spas spread worldwide