Russian father sues Oklahoma City surgeon Dr. Paul Francel over son’s care
Teen died after rare brain surgery

BY NOLAN CLAY
Published: February 14, 2009

An Oklahoma City surgeon has been accused in a civil lawsuit of medical negligence in his treatment of a Russian teenager who died after a risky brain stem operation.

The lawsuit is one of seven filed in Oklahoma County District Court against Dr. Paul Francel so far this year. Francel in December stopped practicing medicine while he is under investigation by state medical officials.

Francel was caught up in an international controversy after he did a free surgery on Russian David Kurbanov on Oct. 3, 2006, to remove a tumor on his brain stem.

David slipped into a coma days later and never recovered.

He was declared brain dead on Nov. 27, 2006, but was kept on life support systems at his father’s insistence.

His heart stopped on June 20, 2007. He was 16.

Father calls care ‘substandard’

The father, Sabit Kurbanov, said in 2007 that the surgeon used his boy as a guinea pig for publicity. The father’s lawsuit alleges the care and treatment of David "fell below acceptable medical standards.”

The doctor in 2007 said, "I put my heart and soul into his care. You’re not going to always have everything turn out the way you want, because the disease is bad.”

An attorney for the doctor told The Associated Press he could not comment on pending cases.

In one of the other lawsuits, a patient, Lucas Berry, accuses the doctor of using the wrong size of rods in 2007 during surgery for a herniated disc. The patient complained he had to have two more surgeries but ended up with permanent injuries.