AMES, Iowa — A once state-of-the-art aesthetic center in Ames now sits vacant after Sturm Cosmetic Surgery abruptly closed on February 9, citing “personal, emergent medical concerns” in an email to patients. 

Christine Heintz and Diana Dickenson, both former patients, underwent procedures with Dr. Sturm — Heintz seeking a “mommy makeover” with a breast reduction, lift, and tummy tuck, and Dickenson addressing painful scar tissue from a previous hysterectomy with an abdominoplasty. Both women say their care fell far short of expectations. 

The procedure was supposed to help Heintz regain her confidence.  

“I just had some issues that I wanted to address with myself personally that had bothered me since the earliest stage I can remember,” said Heintz.   

But instead, it led to a long and expensive journey to restore her life and health. 

“You have a lot of hope and faith. You just have faith that they’re telling you the right things to do. And when you realize that it’s not right, it’s just, it’s a tailspin,” said Heintz.   

Right after her surgery, Heintz said she and her husband knew something wasn’t right with one of her breasts. 

“He noticed right away that I had a lot of discoloration, and like my right nipple area, it was gray and did not look healthy. The left one was pink, looked okay. We asked about it. We were told that was normal. It was all okay,” said Heintz.  

Heintz said that discoloration ended up being dead tissue. Weeks into her recovery, she was restitched multiple times by Dr. Sturm, leading Heintz to seek a second opinion in Omaha. 

“And then when I did finally switch doctors, the first thing he tells me is, you know that it’s all dead right? … [he] said that it looked like something that was done in a third world country … So, that was a bit of a gut punch,” said Heintz.

Multiple surgeries to reconstruct her breast followed, but certain tissue couldn’t be saved.  

“I don’t have a right nipple … I mean it’s, it’s still very odd when you’re getting dressed to see yourself in the mirror, considering what I had naturally,” said Heintz

During this time, Heintz says Dr. Sturm stopped returning her calls, leading her to file a complaint with the Iowa Board of Medicine. 

Heintz spent $35,000 in cosmetic surgery, with $13,000 of it going towards repairing Dr. Sturms’ work.  

Three years after her recovery, Heintz turned to Facebook, detailing her own experience.   

“I thought it was time. I didn’t know there were this many, but the ones that I did know of, there were too many,” said Heintz.  

Her post was the opening that other patients needed and led to a Facebook group with thousands of members, many with similar stories. 

“So many of them thought they were alone. They thought they were the one off, the unique, the outlier…. There are so many that don’t have any idea, like when she closed, had no idea what to do,” said Heintz.  

“It was just a complete and utter shock. I was only, I was less than two weeks out from surgery. I hadn’t even had the doctor herself look at my incision yet to make sure everything was going okay,” said Diana Dickenson, a former patient of Dr. Sturm.

The clinic closed weeks after Dickenson had undergone $13,000 worth of cosmetic surgery, having post-surgical drainage tubes removed just days before the closure. Leaving her post-op with no aftercare; it was then that she stumbled upon Heintz’s Facebook group. 

“It is shocking to see the photos on that page and to see how many bad results are out there… I just feel for the people who maybe had their surgery that same week that she closed and still had their tubes. And I just. What did they do? Who did they find to go take tubes out?  They probably were scrambling. I just feel for those people,” said Dickenson. 

Dickenson says the money she spent covered not only her surgery, but all follow-up appointments and laser treatments to help with her scars. Appointments she did not receive. 

After a month of no follow-up care, Dickenson paid out of pocket to seek a second opinion, visiting a local plastic surgeon who said her procedure is healing correctly.

Now, the goal is to spread awareness and help future patients find surgeons who create positive outcomes.

“What if I turned out like that? Like some of those photos, and made it worse just because I wanted to actually live normally and ended up worse? That just would have been awful,” said Dickenson.

“I don’t feel like she should touch another human being for the rest of her life … My concern is that if the medical board does not take action, she can go somewhere else and do it again,” said Heintz.

The Iowa Board of Medicine charged Dr. Sturm with professional incompetence, and she voluntarily surrendered her medical license. She and her husband, an anesthesiologist in Ames, filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy. Dr. Sturm can reapply for a license again in two years. 

Dr. Sturm faces multiple lawsuits, including two for medical malpractice, one for wrongful death, and another over an allegedly negligent procedure.  

The suits extend beyond patients — a former employee also sued in March, claiming wrongful termination for refusing unsafe and unethical practices, citing incomplete patient records and a hostile work environment. 

WHO 13’s Lindsey Burrell reached out to Dr. Sturm multiple times over the last four months via email for comment but did not receive a response.