Botched breast surgery and Blackstock: Hunter woman regrets cosmetic surgery with deregistered doctor

*Lauren Lowe decided to get a breast augmentation after being left with "absolutely nothing" after breastfeeding her children.

She had hoped it would help her regain some confidence.

"Little did I know that it was going to be the start of a really, really bad journey for me," Ms Lowe said.

"I've had ruptures, I've had leaks, he's cut through my muscle incorrectly.

"If my children ever ask me about my scars and implants I will tell them, 'Mummy made some very silly decisions'."

Rather than build her up like she had hoped, the experience destroyed her self-esteem. She said she is "always covered up" now, embarrassed by her scars and haunted by the pain.

Dr Blackstock had called himself a "cosmetic surgeon".

"I didn't know the difference between cosmetic and plastic surgeons, I just thought they were all the same," she said.

Ms Lowe had her first surgery with the now de-registered Dr Blackstock in 2012 in Sydney. She was 29 years old.

It was the first of three surgeries she would have with Dr Blackstock.

She has been told it will take another three surgeries to fix what he has done.

"At my first consult, I told him I wanted the implants to go under the muscle, and he was like, 'No, no, we'll just go over'," she said. "I wanted them done that way because they tend to look more natural. Little did I know, he didn't actually offer that. He talked me out of it, and because I thought he was a medical expert, I trusted him."

Her first surgery went for about 45 minutes in Dr Blackstock's Penrith clinic.

"I was back on the road within half-an-hour-to-45 minutes. My husband drove me home," she said.

Dr Blackstock had given her "twilight sedation" for the procedure.

"I was knocked out just a little bit. I felt the incisions in my chest," she said.

"I reckon it was within 20 minutes that I was getting sat up. He brought my husband into the room and we had to look into this mirror - the kind of mirror you'd hang in your bedroom - and he asked if we were happy with how they looked.

"My husband felt really awkward to be put in the position to answer that, and I was under the influence.

"I just remember thinking, 'Oh my god, what am I doing?' I had all these drawings on me, and these implants in me, and 20 minutes later I was awake again and that was it."

Initially, she liked her new breasts.

"Compared to what I had - and I didn't have anything left after breastfeeding - they looked OK," she said.

"But pretty soon you could see there was something not quite right, because I had a leak. Over time you could see the massive difference. One had been going down, and I did approach him about it. He said it was my body rejecting it, and I'd have to have another surgery."

This time, at Dr Blackstock's "shiny" new Emu Plains clinic, he said he would need to perform a "lift", as well as replace the implants with bigger ones because the "pocket" he had created for them had stretched.

"He wasn't qualified to perform a lift when I first saw him," she said.

"After the second surgery, I was in absolute agony.

"The scarring I have is absolutely horrible, the pain I was in was incredible, and the infections I got were disgusting. I had these weeping wounds, and I had a massive reaction to whatever tape he put on me, and pretty much my nipples were pointing up to sky.

"When he was shown images of it, he said, 'Just get some steri-strips and stick it back together'.

"I've got quite a little frame and he put these massive implants in my chest. It was horrible, I was in consistent pain.

"Then I got a rupture in my second set of boobs. It was the same deal - my body, my problem.

"This is where he said let's do a third set, and this time let's go under the muscle.

"I thought I had nowhere to go because he had started it all. Something never felt right - it was the way he brushed over it and said, 'We'll just do this and fix it'.

"But he was really believable. I think he believed his own lies."

Ms Lowe said she has "daily pain" from the damage caused to her muscles.

"I've got to have a muscle review to see what condition my muscles are in," she said.

"But these implants have to come out, regardless."

Ms Lowe discovered she wasn't alone when she found a Facebook page of women who had suffered through similar scenarios at the hands of Dr Blackstock.

"When I was originally dealing with it he made out like I was the only person it was happening to, he made out that it was just my body rejecting them," she said.

"Now I know there are others who had the same experience. He operated for six months with no licence."

Ms Lowe is one of more than 100 of Blackstock's former patients being represented by local law firm Catherine Henry Lawyers.

But there are other class actions and legal proceedings underway against him. "I saw a reconstruction surgeon in Sydney for legal proceedings, and the quote to fix what he has done was about $105,000," she said.

"It has destroyed me emotionally. Completely destroyed me."

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She said she had not understood the difference between someone who called themselves a cosmetic surgeon and a plastic surgeon.

"The website and everything looked legit, and he sounded very qualified. His second clinic was massive, and everything looked top of the line," Ms Lowe said.

"Everything was shiny, everything was new. I'm no medical practitioner, I wouldn't know good from bad, but it all looked pretty legit to me. Super shiny, super clean."

In 2020, the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal (NCAT) ruled Blackstock had been "grossly derelict" in his duties, and he was found guilty of professional misconduct and unsatisfactory professional conduct.

He had also been convicted and fined a year earlier for conducting a private health facility and performing treatments without a licence. Ms Lowe recommended people who were considering any cosmetic procedure do their research, and "get that second opinion" if something doesn't feel right.

"If I can help even just one woman to do their research, to know what they are getting, or even question whether they really need to it in the first place, then that's good," she said.

"After you have children, your body changes, but after what I have been through, I just think - your health is so much more important than your body image."

Catherine Henry's Newcastle law firm is representing many of Dr Blackstock's former patients. She said the cases they had been bringing against him were "pretty black and white" on the medical issues in the sense they involved allegations of "inarguable negligence".

"They would often need multiple procedures to fix them up," Ms Henry said. "More likely than not they would be left in a pretty bad state, from a cosmetic perspective.

"They often had terrible scarring, and in many cases were still in a lot of pain."

Ms Henry said many of the women, lured by Dr Blackstock's cut-price procedures, found themselves stuck with a bad result they could not afford to fix.

She said the Australian Lawyers Alliance were involved in a campaign to stop doctors from calling themselves cosmetic surgeons.

"It should no longer be possible for GPs or people with no surgical training to do what they do, which is the current situation," she said.

"It's a bit like skin cancer clinics. They see people advertising their services as a cosmetic surgeon in the breast augmentation space, and they are none the wiser. They don't realise they are not dealing with a specialist, and they don't realise the level of training and skill isn't what they are entitled to. What they focus on is that it's less than half of what other doctors charge."

Ms Henry said a person was a "whole lot" more likely to get a better result using the services of someone who has 15 years of specialist training.

"We just feel terribly sorry for these women. They have been terribly knocked around, and it's very sad."

The Newcastle Herald attempted to contact Dr Blackstock for comment via his legal representatives, who said they had received "no instruction" from their client to respond and that it would not be prudent to comment on a case before the court.

*Real name withheld so as not to jeopardise legal proceedings.

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