Doctor’s former patient fights for life

Brenda Naylor weighed almost 300 pounds when she had gastric by-pass back in 2005.

Now, she weighs less than 100. She can’t keep food down and she’s paralyzed.

Brenda lost her job because of her medical problems, and her husband had to quit his to take care of her. She is currently on morphine for her pain. It was prescribed by her new doctors in Chapel Hill.

“Chapel Hill said the type of surgery she had done. They done some things wrong. But they’ve never seen someone cut like she was,” said Jackie Naylor, Brenda’s husband.

After a number of lawsuits were filed against him, Steven Olchowski left the Wilmington area in 2003 and began practicing medicine in Michigan.

His patients here continued to have problems. Some of his patients died.

In September of 2005, the N.C. Medical Board revoked Olchowski’s license for medical malpractice.

Six days later, Olchowski changed his name to Dr. Steven Hawkins. However, that didn’t stop the Michigan Medical Board from revoking his license there, too.

His troubles made headlines at the time, but the Naylors didn’t hear about Olchowski’s demise until they called the hospital recently in the midst of Brenda’s on-oing medical problems.

The hospital explained he no longer worked there, and sent her a copy of one of our old stories on Olchowski.