Surgeons at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center are seeking approval for a “face transplant” operation, reports the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. The surgery would aim to restore normal facial characteristics to a patient who has devastating facial deformities or has experienced severe trauma.
The first post on this blog was about the “near-total face transplant” performed by surgeons at the Cleveland Clinic in 2008. The operation required 22 hours and a large, diverse team of doctors.
Now UPMC surgeons, who have experience with hand transplants, want to perform a similar operation in the future. A hand transplant requires very advanced techniques to reconnect tissues, veins and blood vessels. A face transplant would have different cosmetic goals and could require donation of organs that are difficult to procure.
The Wall Street Journal just posted “5 Tips to Shrink Your Plastic Surgery Bill” in their Smart Money column, offering advice on how to choose a plastic surgeon, schedule your surgery at the last minute, make price comparisons, haggle with your insurance company and finally pay for the procedure.
In recent weeks, we’ve heard many journalists talk about the proposed tax on cosmetic surgery, and plastic surgeons have weighed in on the subject, strongly voicing their opposition to the tax.
The only problem is, patients would likely pay the majority of this 5 percent charge on top of the cost of elective procedures such as Botox, rhinoplasty, or laser skin resurfacing, and we haven’t heard very much from their perspective.
The new tax unveiled Wednesday as part of the recent health care reform bill levies a 5 percent tax on elective cosmetic procedures. Plastic surgeons in America have spoken strongly against the proposal, and here are the top 5 reasons they say it should not pass.
Discriminatory: Women purchase 86 percent of all cosmetic medical procedures in the United States.
Targets middle class America: In a 2005 survey of people planning cosmetic surgery, 60 percent of the respondents reported incomes of $30,000 to $90,000 a year.
Could promote medical tourism: Patient safety should always be the “first concern” says ASAPS president Renato Saltz, and that should continue ““for those patients here in this country, as well as those patients who may now be encouraged by this tax to obtain their procedures abroad.”
Historically ineffective: “Since it passed a 6% tax on elective medical procedures in 2004, the New Jersey Department of Taxation has experienced a 59% shortfall based on projected revenue estimates.”
Line between reconstructive and cosmetic isn’t always clear: the tax imposes the burden of making clear distinctions between procedures that are medically necessary and simply elective. Who will make these distinctions?
Plastic surgeons belonging to the American Society of Plastic Surgery have been encouraged to log on to capitolconnect.com and make their opposition to this tax known.
If you’re interested in the mommy makeover that we offer here in Maryland, you might want to check out this recent Fox news feature filmed in Charlotte.
The mommy makeover is a series of cosmetic surgeries designed to give women their “pre-baby body” back. Fox speaks with Dr. Kevin Smith about the risks, benefits, and cost of a mommy makeover, and a patient discusses her satisfaction with the procedure(s).
Is it exercise that contributes most to your appearance or is it cosmetics? Do you try to look beautiful because you want to attract potential partners or do you just enjoy the increased self-confidence? Are you more focused on your facial appearance, or your overall body aesthetic?
A survey facilitated by two of the largest American surgery associations was designed to answer questions like these. The survey revealed, among other interesting results, that persons of different age groups perceived beauty in different ways. ASAPS President Renato Saltz says the survey was intended to help surgeons “understand what patients are most concerned about at different stages of their lives.”
Participants were grouped by age to determine how members of each generation approach physical appearance of the self, and physical appearance of a partner.
Respondents in their 20s, 30s, and 40s reported that a “fit, well proportioned body” was what they found most appealing in another person. When it came to their own physical characteristics, the same group was apparently more concerned about their own faces. The abdomen and hips were said to be areas of significant concern (especially in the 30s), but across the board, patients said they were most conscious of their facial appearance.
Reasons given for maintaining an attractive physical appearance included the following:
Boost self confidence
Attract partners
Increase job prospects
Make friends
In all age groups, cosmetic procedures ranked fairly high, alongside diet, exercise, and skin care. Through the link listed below you can easily view the results (in a pdf file) of the Beauty for Life survey.
As reported by the New York Times in this interesting article, medical practices in Prague are offering free surgical enhancements to nurses as an employment incentive. One nurse opted for breast augmentation and liposuction, free of charge.
The piece raises some complex ethical dilemmas: While the procedures could certainly be beneficial to individual nurses in the short term, would such a practice harm the nursing profession as a whole?
According to reporter Dan Bilefsky, nurses in the region “insist they are under enormous pressure to look good in a society where attractiveness is often as highly prized as clinical skills.” Critics argue that the incentives could promote an idealized body image for nurses, in a profession already suffering from misconceptions about technical competence. A spokeswoman from the Czech nurses association argues that nurses are still perceived as “low level workers” with little to offer besides manual labor. Nurses after all, aren’t intended to be models, but caregivers that provide an enormous benefit to the medical profession and the public they serve. A misplaced emphasis on their physical appearance could undermine public perceptions of their competence and value.
Still, others may not see any problem with offering incentives through procedures like breast augmentation or rhinoplasty; perhaps they’re analogous to employee discounts at a retailer, vacation packages, or other career perks.
The supposed ethical problems brought by these surgical incentive programs probably aren’t a product of the programs alone, but rather an objection to the sexism and discrimination that underlie them.
A multi-talented association of surgeons and doctors from the Cleveland Clinic Dermatology and Plastic Surgery Institute have successfully performed a near-total facial transplant, restoring roughly 80 percent of a patient’s face.
Though patient details have been withheld for privacy reasons,the clinic’s online press release states that the female patient had suffered from severe facial trauma. Many functional components of the patient’s face were restored.
Surgeons utlized the latest techniques in microsurgery and transplantation to integrate facial structures like the lower eyelids and nose, while also replacing different complex tissues like arteries, nerves and skin.
Doctor Maria Siemionow, director of Plastic surgery research and team leader for the operation, has spent a major part of her career researching and developing such a procedure. She was able to direct professionals from many disciplines, including surgery, anesthesia, opthamology, dentistry and bioethics. A cooperative approach of this magnitude is the only way to succeed in such a complex surgical procedure.
“No other aspect of our anatomy is capable of even a fraction of the complexity of motion and emotion allowed by the muscles and tissues of the face” says Dr. Siemionow. She describes her motivation for such difficult work in a recent Wall Street Journal article;
“Patients with facial disfigurement have very difficult challenges in society. We hope that one day we may be able to help the tens of thousands of patients who are quietly suffering.”
“face transplant” operation, reports the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. The surgery would aim to restore normal facial characteristics to a patient who has devastating facial deformities or has experienced severe trauma.
their Smart Money column, offering advice on how to choose a plastic surgeon, schedule your surgery at the last minute, make price comparisons, haggle with your insurance company and finally pay for the procedure.
Is it exercise that contributes most to your appearance or is it cosmetics? Do you try to look beautiful because you want to attract potential partners or do you just enjoy the increased self-confidence? Are you more focused on your facial appearance, or your overall body aesthetic?
As reported by the New York Times in
