Milos Klvana: The Physician Convicted of Murdering Infants
Background and Medical Career
Milos Klvana was a Czechoslovak-born physician whose reckless obstetrical practices resulted in the deaths of infants and unborn children in Southern California. After receiving his medical degree in Czechoslovakia in 1967, Klvana immigrated to the United States and entered an obstetrics and gynecology residency in New York. His performance raised serious concerns, particularly after he improperly administered the labor-inducing drug Pitocin during a dangerous delivery. He did not complete the final year of the residency and was not eligible to become board-certified in obstetrics.
Klvana obtained a California medical license in October 1975 and entered an anesthesiology residency at Loma Linda University Hospital. Faculty members repeatedly warned him that he was careless and indifferent to patient safety. In 1976, hospital reviewers concluded that his failure to monitor an anesthetized patient properly contributed to that patient's death. He was advised to avoid medical specialties requiring constant decisions affecting a patient's immediate survival, but he later established an obstetrical practice anyway.
Dangerous Out-of-Hospital Deliveries
During the 1980s, Klvana performed deliveries at offices in the Valencia, Newhall and Temple City areas. He promoted natural childbirth and accepted women whose pregnancies involved complications that made home or office delivery unsafe. Several patients had diabetes, anemia, previous Cesarean sections, breech presentations, premature labor, meconium-stained amniotic fluid or other high-risk conditions.
Klvana frequently represented himself as an experienced obstetrician with hospital privileges and emergency equipment. In reality, he had lost or surrendered privileges at several hospitals and was not board-certified in obstetrics. His offices lacked the staff, fetal-monitoring equipment, surgical resources and neonatal intensive-care facilities required to manage serious complications.
A recurring feature of the fatal deliveries was Klvana's use of Pitocin. The drug strengthens uterine contractions but can endanger a fetus when administered without careful dosage control and continuous fetal monitoring. Klvana often administered it intravenously without an infusion pump while checking fetal heartbeats only intermittently with a stethoscope. When signs of fetal distress appeared, he repeatedly delayed or refused hospital transfers.
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