EXPOSED – Dr. Simon Ourian, Celebrity “Dermatologist”

 This is the latest video in the exposed series where Dr. Adam Rubinstein talks about doctors that may not be giving you the full story about themselves or perhaps misleading you by how they represent themselves. Dr. Rubinstein gives you the full truth. The important point to remember is that this is not intended to tell patients not to go to certain doctors or to disparage someone. The goal of this message is to bring to light what is already out there as public information and to inform people seeking aesthetic treatments.

This one is about Dr. Simon Ourian.

Dr. Ourian became famous after getting some endorsements from Kim Kardashian on social media, which blew up his name. As a result, he started getting more celebrity clients coming in and out of his clinic and eventually became known throughout the internet as the “Celebrity Cosmetic Dermatologist. 

The thing is, he is actually not trained in residency in dermatology. If you look into his background, which is all public record, you’ll see he is, in fact, licensed in the state of California. However, the Medical Board of California reports that he had training in internal medicine and some in anesthesia. The problem is anesthesiology and internal medicine are not related to dermatology or plastic surgery. 

You’ll notice on his website he states that during his residency in UCLA, he became interested in things like dermatology and aesthetics but it doesn’t actually say that he trained in dermatology or aesthetics because he didn’t. Patients who don’t take the initiative to research their providers before receiving treatment, might think that because he calls himself a “cosmetic dermatologist” that he’s trained in dermatology but, the fact is, he’s not.

One of the more shocking bits of information is that his license was revoked in 2009. There were charges brought against him in 2005 by the state of California for 29 acts of wrongdoing. The various charges were amended in 2007 and included, gross negligence, repeated negligent acts, inadequate record-keeping, and incompetence. Dishonest and/or corrupt acts included knowingly making a false document, false or misleading advertising and, maybe one of the more egregious things in my opinion, were aiding and or abetting the unlicensed practice of medicine. This included taking, what apparently was a nurse, and allowing that nurse to practice medicine as if he was a doctor. It is alleged that Dr. Ourian actually allowed this nurse to perform a facelift in his clinic. 

Now, all of these charges were reviewed by the State of California and, ultimately, they revoked Dr. Ourian’s license. In that revocation, they agreed to stay the revocation which means he didn’t actually have to revoke his license fully. That was stayed and he had to serve five years of probation.

Within his probationary period he had to complete 45 hours of medical education that 20 of which were in addition to the usual hours that you’re supposed to complete during your career as a medical provider. The additional hours were applied to the areas that he was found to be deficient in. He had to enter into a clinical training program that would include assessing his own physical and mental health, his communication skills, his medical knowledge skills and judgement. He had to complete a medical records keeping course, an ethics course, and a clinician patient communication course. The most important stipulation is that he could not practice in a solo practice. In fact, he could not practice at all without being monitored by a board-certified doctor throughout those five years. He also could not supervise any physician assistants.

Though, Dr. Ourian complied with all of these requirements and restrictions and had his probation lifted after the five years, that’s not the only run-in he has had with the law. Multiple lawsuits were filed against him personally. At least nine lawsuits named him for medical malpractice in the State of California.There were also 30 lawsuits that were related to his clinic, Epyon, apart from the nine that were filed against him personally.

That’s quite a number of lawsuits that were filed against him. That’s a lot of unhappy patients and speaking of unhappy patients, there is one pretty famous unhappy patient that brought her story public. Dick Van Dyke’s wife was featured on CrimewatchDaily.com with Chris Hansen. Interestingly, that story has since been removed from their website, but we’ll talk about that in a little bit.

Dr. Ourian has a talent, or someone working for him, has a talent of getting these things redacted and removed online, however, you can still find a lot of these stories on different sites. The original Dick Van Dyke story on crimewatchdaily.com can no longer be found but there are links to it that are published elsewhere.

Dick Van Dyke was very upset once he saw the results in the lipo freeze treatment that his, then fiancee, now wife, sought in Dr. Ourian’s clinic. She received a treatment he calls “lipo freeze”, which is not a known medical term or machine, but “lipo freeze” sounds like a cryo lipolysis treatment, which is like CoolSculpting. A patient receiving a cryo lipolysis treatment should never experience any bleeding or scarring and lasting marks on the skin are exceedingly rare.

In this case, Dick Van Dyke saw her results and stated, “When I finally saw the really horrible scars, I blew my top. I became apoplectic.” As the interview goes on, he talks about how her results led to so much bleeding that they had to guard her wedding dress when she went for her fittings. 

Dr. Adam Rubinstein states, “I have done a lot of CoolSculpting and I can tell you I have never had any bleeding associated with CoolSculpting. In fact, up until this story, I was never aware that bleeding was even potentially possible with CoolSculpting.”

Nonetheless, that’s what happened with this lipo freeze treatment. Dick Van Dyke said, “I’m not a violent person but when I walked in that room, I was ready to punch that guy out. Her bleeding was so bad at one point she was forced to wear a corset to not only compress everything but also to guard the wedding dress from blood or anything oozing out.”

They posted some pictures showing, what looks like, bloody blisters, and kind of healing wounds on her body from this treatment. She said, “In retrospect, I now know this was not a good way to go into the procedure, but they have salespeople who they’ve disguised as nurses.” It seems that Dick Van Dyke and his now-wife feel like people don’t know the full truth about Dr. Ourian because it says that the main reason he and his wife were going public with their story almost five years later, was that they believe people have a right to know about their medical professionals. 

Dr. Ourian does a number of treatments that are seemingly proprietary. One of the best examples of this, is a treatment called Cool Laser, which doesn’t seem to be any type of laser that you can buy. In fact, the name “cool laser” is trademarked by Dr. Simon Ourian. So, it appears that he uses it to describe a treatment using some form of light or laser, but it’s unknown exactly what that light or laser treatment is. There’s no other doctor in the world that can use that term “Cool Laser” because he holds the trademark and he won’t let anybody else use the term.

Dr. Rubinstein is not aware of any device that’s been built with the name, yet there seems to be some sort of machine with the name Cool Laser on it in his office. Or at least he refers to it as Cool Laser when he does the treatments.

A very well known dermatologist, Dr. Jason Emmer, who, in fact, is a cosmetic dermatologist and well-known online made a comment about Cool Laser on one of the websites. “I have yet to see a positive result from this laser. Every day in my practice, I find someone coming to me for an alternative treatment.”

Besides Dick Van Dyke and his wife putting their story out in the public about how unhappy they were with the treatment by Dr. Ourian. There are a number of other negative reviews and negative complaints about Dr. Ourian’s care that you’ll find in various sites. Particularly, there are as many as 13 different complaints filed on ripoffreport.com. The problem is that ripoffreport.com has a method to try and obscure those reviews.

When you post a complaint to ripoffreport.com it’s featured prominently. You can put anything you want in the name of your complaint. You can say for example, “dr. ourian scam” or “dr. ourian scam artist” if you wanted to and that would be the header for your review. 

The website has a Corporate Advocacy Program, which allows business owners to apply as a verified business. The program will qualify them as a legitimate business with proper licenses and if the business is approved, it will allow the business owner to pay a fee to have their negative reviews and complaints hidden. The cost depends on how many negative reports you have and how big your business is. 

In the case of Dr. Ourian, if you look up the name Simon Ourian on ripoffreport.com you’ll see that all of his reviews are displayed down the left side of the page, when they used to be prominently displayed in the main section. They have also had all their titles replaced with content that they wrote talking about it being a verified business and part of the corporate corporate advocacy program. When you look at that website now, it looks like a commercial for Simon Ourian and you have to scroll way down to get to any reviews. Some parts of the reviews are even redacted when you join the Corporate Advocacy Program if they feel it was inflammatory or could not be proved. So they actually remove parts of the review but they do leave the review up and you can find it if you know where to look. 

So, if you want to check this out, go to the ripoffreport.com, scroll down and you’ll find his reviews, much of which is still intact. If you have trouble finding that or trouble finding the multiple negative reviews on Yelp, there is a resource you can go to. It’s called epionebeverlyhills.com.  Very smart name considering Dr. Ourian’s website is epionebh.com. When you go there you’ll see this whole story about Dr. Simon Ourian. It talks about all the details in this article and more. You can read the reviews from Yelp, you can read the reports from ripoffreport.com that were at least portions, if not, the entire thing cut and pasted. There are lots of documents from the State of California that you can read for yourself. It is a great resource and if you’re thinking about using Dr. Ourian for your care or if you just want to learn more, it’s an amazing source of information.

It’s unclear how Dr. Ourian has managed to get people to remove their negative reviews. Certainly using the Corporate Advocacy Program has been a way to remove some of the reviews but a lot of things somehow are removed in time. Particularly, that Dick Van Dyke story. 

What is clear is that there’s a lot more to Dr. Ourian than Kim Kardashian and his other celebrity patients. There is certainly nothing wrong with using celebrities to build your practices. There are many practices that have become very successful from celebrity endorsements. However, as a prospective patient it’s important not to let yourself get lured into the glitz and glam. Make sure you know the background and if you are going to be seeking care for cosmetic dermatology, you might want to know if your doctor is actually a dermatologist or a plastic surgeon. Getting treatment from someone who has had the right residency training to practice that kind of medicine gives you the best chances for desired results and successful recovery. You also might want to know if they’ve ever been sued or named in a lawsuit. Look into the  back story of patients that maybe weren’t happy with the care. 

Once you have all that information, you can make an educated decision about whether or not you trust them with your health. 

For more information follow Dr. Rubinstein on social media.

We hope you found this informational and educational. If you like what you’ve learned and want to be informed of future Exposed segments, you can subscribe to our channel on youtube at Adam J Rubinstein, MD, FACS. We also post other videos about plastic surgery and beauty FAQs.

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