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THE UNKINDEST CUTS

One is a Manhattan plastic surgeon who boasts “the talents of a sculptor” but has a string of suits complaining of botched boobs and tucks. One delivered slipshod care after performing abortions. One is a publicity-hungry gynecologist who touted his skills in preventing hysterectomies, but one of his patients died on the table.

They are among the New York City doctors with the most malpractice settlements and judgments, reports show.

In a step hailed by patient advocates, the state Department of Health recently started analyzing doctors’ numbers of malpractice payouts. Officials say six payouts in five years will trigger an investigation.

At The Post’s request, the medical-watchdog company HealthGrades used its database to list city doctors with the most malpractice payments.

The sued specialists include Dr. Stanley West, a Manhattan gynecologist who hired a p.r. agent to promote his book, “The Hysterectomy Hoax,” and his alternative method to remove uterine fibroids.

Martha Kraut, then 49, saw West on TV and thought he was the answer to her fibroid problem.

The mother of two went into cardiac arrest during surgery and died in 1994. Her own blood, tainted by toxins from the sliced growths, recirculated into her body, court records show. West settled for $1.6 million in 2005, one of eight malpractice payouts.

Her husband, David, told The Post he “lost the love of my life.”

“At the other end of [doctors’] bad decisions, there are dead people and destroyed families,” he said.

West declined to comment, but blamed his trail of malpractice cases on “politics, and pressure from insurance companies to settle when there wasn’t any reason.”

Dr. Stanley Taub, a plastic surgeon on Central Park South, touts himself as an artist with a scalpel.

But HealthGrades tallies 13 malpractice payments for Taub in the last decade.

Even the “insurer of last resort” wants to get rid of Taub. He’s being sued by the Medical Malpractice Insurance Pool of New York, a trade group required by law to cover doctors deemed “too risky” to get insurance elsewhere.

Taub did not return a call for comment.

Dr. Mitchell Kaphan, a Bronx orthopedic surgeon, made three blunders from 1987 to 1995, performing surgery on the wrong hips of two patients and the wrong knee of a third, the state’s disciplinary board found. The state revoked his license, and he won it back in five years.

But his troubles were not over. He made 10 malpractice payouts from 1997 to 2003, including $165,000 plus $1,850 a month for life to a Bronx teen.

Kaphan, who has offices in The Bronx and Queens, told The Post the suits dated to a time when he handled many trauma and ER cases in the “very litigious” Bronx.

“I’ve had to change the dynamics of how I practice medicine – not taking trauma, and doing elective work that’s handpicked,” he said.

Dr. Salomon Epstein, a Brooklyn obstetrician, failed to care for patients after abortions, the state found. In some cases, he did not even test for pregnancy, state records show. The state let him practice on probation from 2000 to 2008.

He has eight payouts from 1996 to 2005. He did not return a call.

Obstetrician Santo Fiasconaro of Brooklyn has made eight payouts, including $1.5 million to a woman whose daughter suffered cerebral palsy and other maladies in a premature birth. Fiasconaro’s office manager, Linda Queen, defended his record, saying he had 13 malpractice suits in 30 years.

Dr. Ramanathan Raju, VP of medical and professional affairs at the city’s Health and Hospitals Corp., made nine payouts between 1998 and 2004. In one case, he and two other doctors were accused of failing to diagnose a 14-year-old girl before her appendix burst.

HHC spokeswoman Pam McDonnell said Raju has performed more than 20,000 surgical procedures in the “high-risk, highly litigious areas” of trauma and vascular surgery.

“He has a long history of tackling cases other doctors have given up on and has saved many, many lives,” she said.

Additional reporting by Kathianne Boniello and Ginger Adams Otis

janon.fisher@nypost.com