China's "Miss Ugly" Wins Free Plastic Surgery

Some interesting (and scary) developments in Chinese plastic surgery:
27 year old Zhang Di won a newspaper competition in China and was crowned the area's Cinderella, or as some media have dubbed her "Miss Ugly." She was given $16,000 worth of plastic surgery in 12 operations to give make her look more "Western."

Elsewhere in China, plastic surgeons are breaking the leg bones of patients and slowly lengthening them using tissue expansion techniques, reportedly adding up to 4-5 inches of extra height. This is something I have not heard of in the States, except for reconstruction when people have bone removed from the legs from trauma or cancer.

While some people may think that China's "Miss Ugly" contest is crude and mean, is it really that different from The Swan or Extreme Makeover here in the States?

Source: theage.com

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Michigan-based Plastic Surgeon
Anthony Youn, M.D.:

His Other Eye Shoots Out Cookies!

I saw this photo on Dlisted.com and had to comment on it. How is this guy shooting milk out of his eyelid?
There is a small drainage duct, or punctum, in the inner aspect of each upper and lower eyelid which drains tears out of the eye and through the nose. This is one reason why your nose runs when you cry. Although this duct mainly runs in one direction, I suppose it is possible for a dumb fool to stick milk up his nose, plug his nostrils, close off his palate and push the milk back through his punctum and out his eye...giving him his two seconds of fame on blogs like this one.
What a hideous sight.

Photo credit: dlisted.com
Thanks to Ryan Desmond for the Title

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Michigan-based Plastic Surgeon
Anthony Youn, M.D.:

Man wakes up during his own autopsy

An interesting, non-plastic surgery story: A Venezuelan man woke up in a morgue after a car wreck in extreme pain-- during his own autopsy. According to Reuters.com:

Carlos Camejo, 33, was declared dead after a highway accident and taken to the morgue, where examiners began an autopsy only to realize something was amiss when he started bleeding. They quickly sought to stitch up the incision on his face.
“I woke up because the pain was unbearable,” Camejo said, according to a report on Friday in leading local newspaper El Universal.

I'm just a plastic surgeon, but whenever I declared someone dead (as a general surgery resident) I would usually check to make sure they weren't breathing and had no pulse. Just a thought.

Thanks to Kevin MD medical blog for the story.

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Michigan-based Plastic Surgeon
Anthony Youn, M.D.:

The World's Largest Breasts and Silly String Implants

Every so often I get an email from a reader with photos of a woman with horribly large breasts. One reader recently sent me a link to Body Philosophy's The World's Largest Breasts article, which can be found here. (Proceed with caution)Most of these women have been implanted with 'string implants,' which are composed of polyprolene strings that apparently expand the longer they are in the breast. They are not currently approved by the FDA, but for a short time were used here in the States for breast augmentation. They often enlarged the breasts to insane sizes, making Pam Anderson look like...well... me. I have never seen these implants nor anyone with them, and hope they are never used again. Plastic surgeons should always remember we are doctors first and plastic surgeons second. We should never to perform a procedure where the risks outweigh the benefits.

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Michigan-based Plastic Surgeon
Anthony Youn, M.D.:

New York Plastic Surgeon Mess

The Village Voice has a story on a New York plastic surgeon who has lost his medical license due to allegations of improper behavior. The story includes Vegas strip clubs, crystal meth, sponges left in breasts, and 'a gigantic penis.' My friends, this is straight out of the tabloids, and I'm not sure what to make of it.

Stories like this make my life look and sound very boring. I've never done drugs, but do like a beer every once in a while. I've never cheated on my wife, or hit on my patients (yet I must admit that they almost never hit on me!). I don't yell at my employees(except when they refuse to refer to me as 'The Artist'), and have never thrown a tantrum in the operating room. I have a handful of patients who I find extremely annoying, but try to always remind myself that my patients give me the lifestyle that I have. I've never been sued, but I have agonized and lost sleep over an unsatisfactory surgical result. I do read to my son before he goes to bed every night, but look forward to lying on the couch afterwards and watching "Lost" with my wife. I like to listen to Jimmy Buffett.
...I guess I don't mind being a little "boring."

Check the article out here.

Thanks for reading.

Michigan-based Plastic Surgeon
Anthony Youn, M.D.:

The Ugly Road to Beauty

I originally posted on this a year ago, but I think it's fascinating enough to post it again. MSNBC has a great article on a person who travels to Mexico to have plastic surgery performed, bargain basement style. The article tells about a fly buzzing around the operating room while a facelift is being performed, receiving a 'D' cup size when a 'B' was asked for, and the person running the place telling the patient, "You're going to have some hooters!"
There is also an accompanying slide show which is fascinating as well.

One major thing to consider if you are thinking about traveling out of the States for plastic surgery: Who pays for complications? Your health insurance likely won't.
In addition to emphasizing the dangers of traveling for plastic surgery, it also places a spotlight on accreditation. If you consider having plastic surgery in an out-of-hospital setting, make sure the place is accredited by a respected organization, such as AAAHC or AAAASF. I've heard scary stories of unaccredited facilities, even here in Michigan.

MSNBC Article: click here
Slide show: click here

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Michigan-based Plastic Surgeon
Anthony Youn, M.D.:

Duct Tape Bandit ... Unsuccessful

Some idiot in Ashland, KY wrapped his face in duct tape to conceal his identity and then tried to rob a liquor store. Too bad the duct tape provided no protection from the store manager's wooden club! The doofus fled to the parking lot where he was tackled and held in a choke hold until police came and arrested him.

This reminds me of a patient whom I treated while I was working in the surgical ICU as a general surgery resident. We had one guy come in with a major closed head injury. Apparently, this guy was breaking into a local family's house one night and was met with the father's baseball bat...to his head. Yes, there is some justice in this world!

Story and photo credit: foxnews.com

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Michigan-based Plastic Surgeon
Anthony Youn, M.D.:

Drug Lord Uses Plastic Surgery to Go Undetected

This is an interesting story I got from Dr. Rob Oliver's blog. Columbian drug lord Robert Abadia used plastic surgery as a way to escape detection by the authorities. He was ultimately caught by advanced voice-recognition technology since he looked so different after numerous plastic surgeries. Dr. Oliver believed he had the following surgeries: rhinoplasty, facelift, blepharoplasty, and facial implants. I would agree with this, but also add browlift, chemical peel or skin bleaching cream and dumb green hat to the mix. He looks like a wax statue.

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Michigan-based Plastic Surgeon
Anthony Youn, M.D.:

Breast Augmentation for Free - Ethically Wrong?

My Free Implants.com and a "Board-certified cosmetic surgeon" have gotten together to offer a free breast augmentation at Erotic LA, a three day sexuality and lifestyle exhibition to be held next week at the LA Convention Center. This is the second year in a row that they have had this contest.
The American Society of Plastic Surgeons, which is the largest and most trusted plastic surgery organization in the world, considers it an ethical violation to give out plastic surgery as a contest without following specific ethical guidelines. According to their guidelines, a member is subject to discipline or explusion if:

The member participates in a charity raffle, fund raising event, contest or other promotion in which the prize is any procedure* or gift certificate or other document redeemable for all or part of the cost of a procedure*.

There are a number of other rules regarding contest participation that I won't bother going into here. As a board-certified plastic surgeon I am always fighting against the perception that plastic surgeons are unethical, money-grubbing crooks. Contests like this don't help us in showing the public that the vast majority of us are physicians who strive to be ethical and use our skills to make people's lives better. Do we benefit monetarily through this? Yes, and for some more than others. Is that all we care about? No. I can honestly say that the best part of my job is seeing happy patients after their surgery and going home feeling that I helped some people feel better about themselves. I feel very blessed to be able to have the career I do.

And no, this isn't b.s.

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Michigan-based Plastic Surgeon
Anthony Youn, M.D.:

Scary...

Wow, this is a photo that was presented on Dlisted.com. This is a good example of the statement: Just because you can do something (as a plastic surgeon) doesn't mean you should. Wonder if all three of them have the same surgeon?

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Michigan-based Plastic Surgeon
Anthony Youn, M.D.:

Gross Story about Liposuction "Meat"balls

If you have a sensitive stomach you may wish to skip this story. It has nothing to do with celebrities but is an "odd plastic surgery story." Apparently there is an artist named Marco Everistti who recently had liposuction. He saved the liposuction fat and has made them into "meat"balls, fried them in olive oil, and canned them. According to raincoaster.com:

Evaristti’s meatballs piece consists of 13 tins of the meat on a long table, in an echo of Christ’s last supper. He says the work is about the sanctity of the body and an unhealthy modern obsession with food and weight loss.
“Firstly, I want to show people that meatballs made with my fat are no more disgusting than the meatballs you buy in the supermarket,” he said. "Secondly, it’s a dialogue with a modern society that lives to eat, rather than eating to live as it should be. You eat, and when you’re fat, you go to a clinic, have an operation, have your fat removed and you start to eat again.”
When he displayed the piece in Chile, Evaristti invited 12 people to join him in eating the meatballs in a last supper. How did they taste? “Even better than my grandmother’s,” he said.

His grandmother must be a horrible cook.

Michigan-based Plastic Surgeon
Anthony Youn, M.D.:

OH MY GOSH

Adult film star Maxi Mounds is the world record holder for the largest breast implants according to the Guiness Book of World Records. Her measurements are 42-26-36, and her breasts weigh 20 pounds each. According to Make Me Heal.com:

Maxi’s breasts were augmented with string breast implants (polypropylene breast implants), which are implants that continue to grow after being implanted in the patient. Typically used by women who want to grow their breasts to a monstrous size, the implants are made of polypropylene which is a synthetic material that expands upon absorbing fluid in the body. String breast implants are typically used only by women in the adult industry and are not FDA approved and not available in the United States.

This is insane. I've seen a lot of crazy stuff in this line of work, but so far this takes the cake. And you thought Pam Anderson was big!

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Michigan-based Plastic Surgeon
Anthony Youn, M.D.:

Spider in your ear!

Great story I found on plasticized.com:

In Oregon, the lines between doctor and veterinarian were blurred when a nine-year-old boy visited Dr. David Irvine complaining of an earache. He said he heard 'rice krispie' sounds in his ear. After irrigating the ear with fluid, some spiders came out. "It was the only time I ever pulled out an invertebrate,"said Dr. Irvine.

That is nasty. This reminds me of a call I once received. A woman asked me for advice after suffering a poisonous spider bite to her face. This caused her cheek to have a big divot. She said she spent a night in a Motel 6 in Flint, Michigan and woke up with a brown recluse spider on her face, repeatedly biting her. The brown recluse spider is a poisonous spider whose toxin causes living tissue to die, hence the divot. No more Motel 6 for me!

Story credit: king5.com

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Michigan-based Plastic Surgeon
Anthony Youn, M.D.:

Radio Contest for Free Breast Implants - Tasteless

There is a fantastic post on Dr. Rob Oliver's Plastic Surgery 101 blog on a radio station's contest where the winner receives free breast implants. Apparently the contestants must spend the night at a radio station-sponsored slumber party and the "girl that parties the hardest" wins. And who do you think will do the surgery?

A board-certified plastic surgeon? Nope.
A non-board-certified plastic surgeon? Naw.
Some type of surgeon? Not even.
Someone who stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night? Not quite.

He's an Emergency Room physician who has become a cosmetic surgeon. Oh, and he's currently on probation.

The American Society of Plastic Surgeons and the American Board of Plastic Surgery consider giving away plastic surgery in a contest as a violation of ethics. I agree with this. While we often consider the subject of celebrity plastic surgery as entertainment, plastic surgery is indeed serious and should never be taken lightly by the people who have it or the people who do it. Those in the lay media are responsible to do their homework on anyone whom they recommend as a surgeon. The people who spend a lot of money on advertising are sometimes the ones who are least able to perform the surgeries properly.


Story link: floridatoday.com, plasticsurgery101 blog

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Michigan-based Plastic Surgeon
Anthony Youn, M.D.:

Phony Plastic Surgeon Ordered to Pay $5 Million

A Cuban national, Reinaldo Silvestre, was recently ordered to pay $5 Million for pain and suffering to a victim of botched breast surgery. Mr. Silvestre, called "The Butcher of South Beach," apparently masqueraded as a bona fide plastic surgeon, performing numerous surgeries on unsuspecting victims. One victim of his botched surgeries was a male Mexican bodybuilder who asked him for a pectoral augmentation. Instead of putting in solid silicone male implants, he allegedly placed women's breast implants into the horrified man (see photo above).
"So this big bodybuilder from Mexico wakes up from this surgery expecting to look like Tarzan and instead he looks like Pamela (Anderson Lee), Dolly Parton,"

Check out Dr. Rob Oliver's excellent Plastic Surgery 101 blog for more details on this story.

This is just another lesson for patients to do their homework before having plastic surgery. Not everyone who says they are a plastic surgeon really is one.

Thanks for reading.
Michigan-based Plastic Surgeon
Anthony Youn, M.D.:

Liposuction Fat to Power Cars?

A businessman in Miami is planning on using human fat taken from liposuction to produce bio-diesel fuel. According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette,

Mr. Venoy's firm is signing an agreement with Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami to recycle 3,000 gallons of human fat a week from its liposuction clinics, according to the Norwegian Web site Aftenposten.no/english. That can produce 2,600 gallons of bio-diesel -- enough to power a Hummer for a week or two.

This sounds absolutely disgusting.

Story credit: plasticized.com

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Michigan-based Plastic Surgeon
Anthony Youn, M.D.:

Humans with wings?

A plastic surgeon at Dartmouth Medical Center has reportedly stated that he is planning to graft wings onto a human, possibly within five years.
According to an article in cyberpunks.org:

Dr Joe Rosen is not a quack. He works at the acclaimed Dartmouth Medical Centre, and has been a scientific advisor to Nasa. He is fond of making statements such as: "Human wings will be here. Mark my words." He believes in all seriousness that within five years he will be able to graft wings on to a human being`s body. This is possible because our brains adapt to create neural maps for new body parts. When we have a limb amputated, our neural map of that limb gradually fades away; and if we gain a body part, our neural map expands accordingly.

"If I were to give you wings, you would develop, literally, a winged brain. Our bodies change our brains, and our brains are infinitely mouldable," Rosen has said.

Surgical techniques already in existence can be used to stretch torso fat and rejig rib bones to create a wing. Although no human would be able to fly, they would resemble angels and have full sensation in their new hanging, boned flaps of flesh. Rosen has designed blueprints. This is the new world of radical plastic surgery, where Rosen is Moses. He would not be content to settle merely for wings either. He has been working on cochlear implants to enhance human hearing (a procedure which the US military has shown interest in, raising as it does the prospect of super-human soldiers), and even tails.

I have been to some of the most up-to-date conferences in plastic surgery and have heard none of this. It sounds as unbelievable to me as it probably does to you! Instead of wings, I wouldn't mind having a third arm. I could probably operate a lot faster...

Story credit: plasticized.com

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Michigan-based Plastic Surgeon
Anthony Youn, M.D.:

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Liposuction on a 12 Year Old

There is a story out of Texas about a 12 year old girl who is reportedly the youngest person ever to get liposuction. It was performed for weight loss purposes, since she was morbidly obese and was not able to lose weight with more traditional methods like diet and exercise. Her surgeon, Dr. Robert Ersek, who calls himself "the biggest fat sucker in Texas," lived up to his moniker when he liposuctioned 35 pounds of fat from Brooke's arms, back and upper midsection in March and removed another 10 pounds — most of it skin — in May by doing a tummy tuck.
Ersek acknowledged it was "a mega amount" of fat and "off the scale," but he is not alone in doing large-volume liposuction or in doing the procedure for weight loss. He cites other plastic surgeons who agree with him in a 2004 book he co-authored, "Mega Lipo."

I have two main problems with this.
First, liposuction or tummy tucks on a pre-teen are just plain wrong. Children who are 12 years old do not have the mental maturity to be able to make the decision to have elective plastic surgery performed on them. This is a decision that she will have to live with for the rest of her life. Also, if I were to perform cosmetic plastic surgery on a child my wife (a pediatrician) would kill me.
Second, liposuction is not a procedure for weight loss. It is a procedure that is best used for body contouring in order to get rid of areas of fat which are not amenable to diet and exercise. 35 pounds of fat is roughly 15 liters. Any surgeon knows that removal of 15 liters from a person's body will create massive fluid and electrolyte shifts which could make a person very sick. I stop my liposuction amount at approximately 5 liters (or 10 lbs), which is, I believe, the recommendation from the American Society of Plastic Surgeons.

I once had an Asian mom call me up to inquire about cosmetic blepharoplasty on her son. I asked her how old he was. She told me he was 7. Yes, SEVEN! I asked her, "Do you think he has the maturity to make a decision to have plastic surgery?"
She answered, "He tells me he wants the surgery all the time."
I couldn't believe that this mom would even consider plastic surgery for her child. He was not deformed, either, but wanted a "double fold" to look more caucasian. I didn't know who to feel more sorry for: the kid who at age 7 had self-image problems, or his mom who must go through life as a complete tool.

Story credit: statesman.com

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Plastic surgery to look bad?

A woman in China recently attempted to get plastic surgery to look worse, in order to woo back her boyfriend who thought she looked so pretty that he would eventually lose her. Here's the story from chinadaily.com:

Woman forsakes her beautiful face

A young woman from Chongqing sought plastic surgery to make her face less attractive recently, after being crossed in love.

The 23-year-old woman's sweetheart left her weeks ago to stay with another woman. Although the two had been in love for six years, her ex-boyfriend feared that her too-beautiful face might lure many other men and thus he didn't feel safe staying with her.

She came to hate all men after being courted by many others, prompting her desire for the surgery. But the doctors refused to co-operate, saying she had a mental disorder and needed to seek help from psychotherapists.

Good thing that her surgeons refused to operate on her. I have seen some pretty crazy things in this field, but plastic surgery for the sole purpose to make someone look unattractive may take the cake. I acknowledge that some people do look worse after bad plastic surgery, but I doubt that that was the purpose (except in the case of Michael Jackson and BDD patients).

World's first penis transplant

The world's first penis transplant was performed in China recently. Unfortunately, it was removed after just two weeks because he and his wife had difficulty accepting it. Reports say that it remained too swollen, although there were no signs of organ rejection.
Those crazy Chinese!
Story link: news.yahoo.com