Anesthesiologist Charged with Murder of Patient

A former anesthesiologist pleaded guilty on Friday to involuntary manslaughter in the death of a fellow doctor who was undergoing an outpatient surgery in Beverly Hills — admitting that he injected himself before the operation with Demerol stolen from the surgical center and then left the operating room to inject himself with additional drugs during the surgery.

Superior Court Judge H. Clay Jacke ordered Stephen Kyo-Sung Kim, now 57, to be taken into custody immediately after his plea in connection with the Sept. 26, 2017, death of 71-year-old orthopedic surgeon Mark Greenspan.

Kim — who was initially charged with murder — is due back in the downtown Los Angeles courtroom for sentencing in December 2023. He is expected to be sentenced then to the two years he will have already served behind bars.

Under questioning by Deputy District Attorney Beth Silverman, the defendant acknowledged that he had been using narcotics that had been stolen from various surgical centers prior to and during surgeries for two to three years; that he injected himself with 50 milligrams of Demerol stolen from the surgical center after he arrived at the facility; and that he did not recall a discussion that morning that the surgery would be done under a local anesthesia with intravenous sedation rather than general anesthesia, as was done.

Kim also admitted that he left the operating room during the surgery to inject 50 milligrams of Demerol and 60 milligrams of Toradol and that he fell and struck his head when he returned to the operating room but said he was fine and able to continue.

The anesthesiologist — who has agreed to surrender his medical license and never work in any job in the medical field — also acknowledged that he unsuccessfully tried to intubate Greenspan numerous times after his heart rate dropped shortly after he administered two medications to the patient about 30 minutes after the surgery; that he incorrectly inserted a breathing tube into the patient and had to be physically pulled away by a paramedic from Greenspan’s IV after re-entering the room with a syringe and beginning to inject the contents that he described as Demerol into the patient’s IV line.

Blood and urine samples collected from Kim indicated that he had a significant amount of Demerol and traces of Fentanyl in his system, he admitted, agreeing that he had used Demerol about 150 times prior to or during other medical procedures.