Category: News

Disclaimer: This article describes discounted plastic surgery procedures in the southern Venezuelan city of Puerto Ordaz. We are in no way recommending that our readers travel there. Please see our previous blog post, “Medical Tourist Trap,” to learn more about the risks of traveling abroad to receive plastic surgery.

Seeking Plastic Surgery in Puerto Ordaz

The mismanagement of the Venezuelan economy by its socialist government has led to 200% inflation, widespread shortages of consumer goods and medicines, and a black market for the Venezuelan currency, the Bolivar, where a dollar buys 130 times the official exchange rate. Out of this economic darkness has emerged one shining sector: cosmetic plastic surgery. In Puerto Ordaz, the country’s now decrepit former industrial capital located 500 miles from the Brazilian border, lower middle class women from Venezuela’s southern neighbor are finding that their Reals (the Brazilian currency) buy a lot of plastic surgery.

Hundreds of women are making the trek, braving 16 military checkpoints while hiding their hard cash in oversized bras. Once in Puerto Ordaz they undergo breast augmentation, liposuction, and Brazilian butt lifts (referred to in Venezuela as “Boom-Booms”) for the equivalent of a mere $1800 in total. On the way home, their newly augmented breasts fill out their bra cups where they had formerly stashed their cash.

Plastic Surgery Boom in the Local Economy

The popularity of the cross-border plastic surgery has given a boost to the depressed local economy. An engineer in the state-owned steel plant supplements her $40 per month salary with an additional $18 dollars a day providing post-operative care to the Brazilian women. The plastic surgeons offer their patients transportations, nurses, hairdressers, and shopping therapy during the convalescent period. Portuguese speaking staff has been hired as well as security guards since Venezuela has one of the world’s highest crime rates. The Brazilian women are warned not to speak Portuguese in public, wear jewelry, nor openly carry cellphones.

Whereas the Brazilians making the trip to Venezuela where initially housekeepers, kitchen maids, and shop assistants living in rural towns, they are now being followed by their employers from the larger Brazilian city of Manaus. The middle class women are sensing competition from their newly enhanced and reshaped employees. How long the boom in plastic surgery will last is not known as the opposition just gained control of Venezuela’s Congress and promised to reverse the socialist policies that have stifled the country’s economy.

Plastic Surgery in Memphis

We tell intriguing news stories like this one on our blog to provide context for our discussions of the plastic surgery industry. Luckily though, we live in a place where no borders have to be crossed for plastic surgery. If you’re interested in a cosmetic procedure and want to find out if it’s the right one for you, please contact our Memphis plastic surgery team to set up a consultation. We’re just around the corner and only a phone call away!

We all know that we see ourselves a little differently than everyone else does. When we look in a mirror, we are seeing a reversed image. What is left is right and what is right is left. It turns out that people prefer the image they see in the mirror to their true appearance.

Plastic Surgery Patient Study

Researchers in Paris enlisted volunteers from a group of French women aged 36-60 undergoing cosmetic surgery between January and March of 2015. Of these women, 50 were having facial aesthetic surgeries such as face-lifts and blepharoplasties. The plastic surgeons took two digital photographs of each of the women and discarded the second photo. They reversed the first image and showed the patients the two photos (the natural way the woman appears in photographs and the mirror image-the way she sees herself when she looks in the mirror). 

The women in the study were asked to choose which picture of themselves they preferred. The flipped mirror image was chosen by 73% of the subjects. Only 9 patients realized that the second picture was actually mirror image.

Plastic Surgeons Work with Asymmetries

Humans are naturally asymmetric. We all have a big eye and a small eye. If you wear glasses, place them on a table. If the glasses can be rocked, that means one of your ears is higher than the other. Women have one breast that is a little larger than the other. Most people are not even aware that they have these asymmetries. Although plastic surgeons try to make both sides of the body match perfectly, this is an “ideal” that rarely occurs in nature. The French study proves once again that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder”.

Continuing our virtual visit to the Hunterian museum we now come to an exhibit called the “Guinea Pig Club”. Members of the “Club,” which at one point numbered more than 650, were injured Royal Air Force (RAF) personnel.  

A Reconstructive Surgery Pioneer

The “Guinea Pig Club” members were patients of a plastic surgeon who was eventually knighted for his pioneering reconstructive work. Archibald McIndoe gave the wounded fliers a second chance at life. Many of the injuries they suffered were burns that resulted from crashes, and the severity of their injuries necessitated that Dr. McIndoe develop new techniques, hence the moniker “Guinea Pig Club”.

Archibald McIndoe began operating on the wounded RAF personnel in 1941. The reconstructive surgeries were performed at the Queen Victoria Hospital in East Grinstead, Sussex, UK. As the disfigured airmen would need to have multiple surgeries, they stayed on in East Grinstead, which became known as “the town that wouldn’t stare”. 

Not only did the members of the “Guinea Pig Club” share a common bond in their relationship with Dr. McIndoe and his team, but also they became one of the first patient support groups. They would go out drinking between hospitalizations and even married several of their nurses. By 2007 the “Club” whose membership had dwindled as age took its toll, met for the final time. This meeting presented the opportunity to photograph the men who still bore the scars from their injuries and record recollections of their experiences and camaraderie.

Winnie the Pooh at the Hunterian Museum

Finally we come to a skull of a bear. Winnie the Pooh was a real live bear whose owner, a Canadian soldier, Lieutenant Harry Colebourn, brought him to the United Kingdom when he was stationed there during World War I. He had purchased the orphan bear in his hometown of Winnipeg, hence the name Winnie. 

When Colebourn deployed to France he donated Winnie to the London Zoo, where the bear lived for 20 years. Winnie was visited there in 1925 by author A.A. Milne and his son Christopher Robin. The boy was so delighted by the bear that he renamed his stuffed teddy bear, Winnie the Pooh. A beloved children’s story was born. Milne did take some artistic license, as Winnie of the Zoo was a black bear, not golden brown.

When Winnie died, the London Zoo donated his body to that repository of human and animal curiosities – The Hunterian Museum.

Recently one of our surgeons had the opportunity to visit the Hunterian Museum in the Royal College of Surgeons in London, UK. This two-part blog piece describes three of the wide range of exhibits that our readers should find very interesting.

Historical Perspective on Surgery

The Hunterian Museum began as the personal collection of John Hunter, an 18th century London surgeon and anatomist. Hunter and his brother, William, advanced the practice of surgery by stressing the teaching of anatomy based on observation as opposed to accepted tradition. John Hunter’s collection included body parts donated by some of his patients at their death so he could study the results of the operations he had performed on them. A number of these specimens exhibit tied off syphilitic aneurysms (weakened ballooned-out arterial walls caused by the sexually transmitted disease which was rampant in 18th century Europe).

Prominently displayed near the museum entrance is the skeleton of the “Irish Giant”. Charles Byrne, who stood 7 feet 7 inches tall, earned his living by charging people to gawk at him at a time when the average British man was only 5 feet 5 inches tall. Word reached Byrne that John Hunter desired to display his skeleton in his museum after the “Giant” passed away. Wanting to foil Hunter’s plans, Byrne got his friends to agree to bury him at sea in a lead coffin. The collector learned of Byrne’s efforts, bribed the “Giant’s” friends, and obtained the body when Byrne died at the age of 22. And so his skeleton shares a display case in the Hunterian museum with a short stature skeleton that suffered from abnormal bone fusion.

Recent Medical Study with the “Irish Giant”

Physicians now know that the “Irish Giant” suffered from a pituitary tumor that caused the over–production of Human Growth Hormone. In 2008 Charles Byrne’s skeleton was used in a medical study when DNA was extracted from two of his teeth. He was found to have a mutation of the AIP gene that causes a condition called Familial Isolated Pituitary Adenoma. Only 200-300 people carry the mutation and most of them live in the same Irish county where Byrne was born. A number of them were found to be his relatives.

The Royal College of Surgeons Today

Medical ethics have changed since the day of John Hunter and no doctor today would advocate grave robbing (although archeologists still dig up pyramids and ancient burial grounds). There have been recent calls to honor Charles Byrne’s wishes and bury his skeleton at sea. The Royal College of Surgeons has rejected these demands as they feel that as science and medicine advances, the “Irish Giant” may still have more to teach. So the man who earned his living letting people stare at him continues to be the center of attention after his death.

The October 7, 1794 issue of the Gentleman’s Magazine published a letter to the editor from one reader identified only as B.L. reporting on a nasal reconstruction operation performed in India, then a British colony. This letter, written by a non-physician and published in the non-medical GQ Magazine of the day, revolutionized the practice of rhinoplasty.

European Nasal Reconstruction

Until that time, nasal reconstruction in Europe was performed with an operation introduced in 1597 by an Italian professor of medicine from Bologna, Gaspar Tagliaccozzi. Using Dr. Tagliaccozzi’s method of rhinoplasty, a doctor would make two parallel incisions in the upper arm to partially cut away the skin. In this procedure that we now call “delay,” the doctor would then insert linen gauze under the skin flap. Then the rhinoplasty patient was kept on bed rest for 14 days.

Once the skin flap adjusted to its reduced blood supply, the next stage of surgery was performed. In this second phase of rhinoplasty, the part of the skin flap closer to the face was cut free leaving the base attached near the elbow. The free edge was attached to the patient’s face, and the patient’s arm and shoulder then had to be immobilized in a leather vest with multiple straps.

After another three weeks, the skin at the arm was cut free and the new nose trimmed and shaped. By this point the patient had a new reconstructed nose, but at the cost of a now frozen shoulder.

Indian Rhinoplasty

The case report from India described a “bullock-driver with the English army in the war of 1792” who had his nose and arm chopped off while he was a prisoner of war. After a year without a nose, the former prisoner, named Cowasjee, went to a brickmaker who recreated his nose using skin from his forehead.

Initially, a wax nose pattern was made, then reversed, flattened and traced on patient’s forehead. The cuts were made along the traced line and the forehead skin flap was rotated 180 degrees and attached to the nose leaving a narrow bridge of skin intact between Cowasjee’s eyebrows.

After 25 days, the skin bridge was divided and the patient was kept on bed rest for four to five days. The donor site on the forehead was allowed to heal on its own, leaving a mirror image of a nose on the forehead.

What became known as the Indian rhinoplasty very quickly became the operation of choice for nasal reconstruction in Europe and America, in spite of the usual chauvinistic attitudes of European doctors. Patient down time was minimal and the shoulder complications were avoided.

Interestingly, whereas most Europeans seeking rhinoplasty had lost their noses in duels or battles, the Indian operation had been developed more than 2000 years earlier when the punishment for adultery was cutting off the offender’s nose. As we rarely see duelers seeking restoration of a lost nose, removal of skin cancers is now the most common reason people seek nasal reconstruction.

Modern Nasal Reconstruction Surgery

Today at the Plastic Surgery Group we perform nasal reconstruction using a modernized version of the Indian operation. Some of the technical aspects of the early rhinoplasty operation do help plastic surgeons today, while modern aesthetic techniques help us to achieve today’s beautiful results in nasal reconstruction. However, please note that we don’t advise patients to seek medical advice from brickmakers, even though nasal reconstruction apparently originated with some in their profession two millennia ago.

Rapid weight gain and rapid enlargement of the abdomen or breasts during pregnancy or puberty can result in stretch marks. Stretch marks, also called striae, are areas of damaged skin where the deeper skin layer, the dermis, has been thinned. We do not claim that we can completely eliminate stretch marks, but we have seen a 50% decrease in the appearance of stretch marks through the treatments we offer.

Here at the Plastic Surgery Group of Memphis, our aestheticians offer two types of skin care treatments to reduce the appearance of stretch marks. Both techniques are nonsurgical and are aimed at stimulating collagen production in the dermis to fill in the stretch marks. These treatments can work on both new and mature stretch marks.

How does ResurFX reduce stretch marks?

One stretch mark treatment we provide uses a non-ablative laser called ResurFX to stimulate collagen and elastin production in the dermis. If the stretch marks are pink or brown, the abnormal color can be removed with IPL (Intense Pulsed Light). ResurFX stretch mark treatments take 15-30 minutes and are very tolerable with the use of a topical numbing cream.

The area will be mildly swollen for a few hours and will appear pink for about a day, but the patient can return to normal activities and work immediately. Maximum stretch mark reduction requires 3-5 sessions spaced 3-4 weeks apart. For additional information, please visit our stretch mark treatment supplier’s website.

What is the Rejuvapen Microneedling System?

Another option to reduce stretch marks is the Rejuvapen Microneedling System. Microneedling is a therapy growing in popularity for treatment of stretch marks, fine wrinkles and mild skin looseness. The 9 micro needles make precise invisible micro perforations through the epidermis into the upper dermis to stimulate collagen production. Again, topical numbing cream helps to minimize discomfort during this treatment of stretch marks.

After a session, most patients will feel as if they have a moderate sunburn for 2-24 hours. Maximum stretch mark reduction requires 3-6 treatments every 4 weeks. For additional information from this stretch mark treatment supplier, please visit the Rejuvapen website.

Begin Stretch Mark Treatment Today

Although the weather in Memphis is at its coldest right now, swimsuit season will be here before you know it, so now is the time to start reducing stretch marks. Make an appointment with our laser and skin care nurse, Carla Mask, to find out which stretch mark treatment can make you more confident in the appearance of your skin this year.

The American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) is currently running public service advertisements alerting potential plastic surgery patients that not all doctors performing plastic surgery are genuine plastic surgeons. The advertisements feature several patients who suffered complications, including the inability to close their eyes after cosmetic eyelid surgery and the development of a “uni-boob” (synmastia) after breast augmentation. These videos can be seen at www.plasticsurgery.org.

Finding Trustworthy Plastic Surgeons in Memphis

If you walk down New York City’s Fifth Avenue you will encounter men selling “Gucci” and “Louis Vuitton” handbags from tables on the sidewalks. Have those high-end stores lost their leases? Of course not! Anyone who buys those bags or Rolex watches from the sidewalk vendors knows they are not getting the genuine product. Unfortunately the Internet has made it difficult for people seeking plastic surgery to know if they are “shopping” at a genuine plastic surgery office or at a “sidewalk table”.

Carefully worded websites can mislead consumers into thinking their doctors are board certified plastic surgeons. Some websites state that their doctors are board certified, but try to hide the fact that their certifications come from the Family Practice, Obstetrics, or Emergency Medicine boards. Other sites mention “training in plastic surgery”, but do not disclose the fact that this consisted at most of a 1-4 week rotation during residency or a weekend course.

Most plastic surgeons delivered a handful of babies during our medical school obstetrics rotation, but no pregnant woman would ask a plastic surgeon to deliver her child. Only four states (Texas, California, Louisiana, and Florida) have regulations requiring transparency in disclosing actual training and certification.

Do Your Homework on Any Plastic Surgery Group

Do your homework. Ask if your plastic surgeon is a member of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, all of whose members are certified by the American Board of Plastic Surgery or the Canadian equivalent. Search for your plastic surgeon on The American Board of Plastic Surgery website. Plastic surgeons who have recently finished their rigorous training may not have yet completed the certification process, as that takes about 18 months.

If your plastic surgeon plans to do your operation in an office operating room, ask if they have hospital privileges to perform the same operation in a hospital. Most hospitals are very careful before offering operating privileges requiring documentation of appropriate training.

Your Experienced Memphis Plastic Surgeons

Here at the Plastic Surgery Group of Memphis, we pride ourselves on offering premier cosmetic treatments, partnering with reputable cosmetic suppliers, and most importantly having well-qualified, highly experienced providers of plastic surgery. All of our doctors are certified by the American Board of Plastic Surgery, meaning they had at least three years of surgical training along with two to three years training specifically in the field of plastic surgery.

Additionally, the American Society of Plastic Surgeons requires members to receive 50 hours of continuing education yearly. A practice like ours is certainly a smart choice when you’re looking for someone to trust with your health and appearance.

If you have a plastic surgery consultation coming up or are considering scheduling one, feel free to ask the provider you meet with about his or her experience and credentials. You can trust that we’re here to give you the highest quality experience with plastic surgery.

With the holiday season quickly approaching, many people are struggling to find gifts that their friends and family will really love and use. You might be thinking, “does my honey need another Santa sweater or a red and green tie?” At the Plastic Surgery Group of Memphis, we would like to suggest the gift of plastic surgery. We offer gift certificates in any dollar amount.

What Can a Plastic Surgery Group Gift Certificate Cover?

With a Plastic Surgery Group of Memphis gift card, your loved one can choose from a range of specialty skin care products such as moisturizers and facial scrubs, starting at just $22. They could also set up a consultation with one of our experienced plastic surgeons to find out about any procedures they may be interested in trying. 

Consultations with our aesthetic nurses are free. If our aestheticians recommend dermal fillers, such as Juvederm or Restylne, or nerve blocking agents, such as Botox or Dysport, a gift certificate can be purchased to cover the cost of those treatments.

Gift Certificates for Surgical Procedures

If your loved one has already had a consultation and examination with one of our plastic surgeons, then a gift certificate can be purchased to help pay for whichever surgical procedure the surgeon has agreed that the patient is an appropriate candidate. Just remember that having a gift certificate that can be used towards liposuction is not a license to over indulge during the holiday season!

Seeking advice from fortunetellers is very popular in South Korea with 70% of respondents in a 2012 survey revealing that they sought or plan to seek such advice. A popular form of fortune telling is called “Face Reading” or physiognomy, a practice that has been around for centuries.

Lately, however, face readers are having trouble because of a popular trend in South Korea. That country leads the world in cosmetic surgery per capita (the US is number 6). New noses and the absence of wrinkles are complicating the work of face readers.

The Wall Street Journal quoted face reader Park Sung-jun who complained, “It’s like they are wearing a mask. If someone comes to me who’s had a lot of plastic surgery, I can’t read their face.” Mr. Park examines client’s faces to predict their earning potential, career, and romantic prospects.

Is Facial Rejuvenation in Your Future?

The Plastic Surgery Group offers several facial treatments that can fool your face reader. ResurFX ™ by Lumenis is a fractional non-ablative laser treatment that stimulates collagen and elastin production. After 3-5 treatments spaced 4-5 weeks apart, fine wrinkles are reduced. Unlike older carbon dioxide ablative lasers, there is no down time and no healing time. Mild pinkness and swelling may be present after treatments, but resolves in several hours.

Other signs of facial skin aging that can be treated include brown spots and “broken” capillaries. The face reader, Mr. Park, says that plastic surgery cannot change a person’s fortune. Wealth and fortune aside, treatments at our Laser and Skin Care Center may help you fool people about your age, make you feel better about yourself, and confuse your face reader.

Both women and men have areas on their bodies where they would rather not have hair grow. Options for hair removal include waxing, shaving, and depilatory creams – all of which provide only temporary results.

There are two treatments that can offer permanent results: electrolysis and laser. Both treatments provide permanence by disabling hair follicles preventing hair regrowth. Electrolysis works by providing an electric shock one hair follicle at a time.

This painful method is preferable when there are only a few stray hairs or when the hairs are white or gray. When an area has many hairs that have color (blond, brown, red, or black), lasers are the most efficient and effective treatment.

What is Hair Reduction?

Before we proceed we need an explanation of terminology. The FDA uses the term “permanent hair reduction” instead of “permanent hair removal” because lasers can disable only those hair follicles that are in the early growth phase called anagen. Since only about 1/3 of hairs in any area are in anagen at any one time, multiple treatments are needed.

It is possible in some patients that in spite of a course of treatments, there may still be a hair or two that regrows – hence the term reduction rather than removal.

So how does laser hair reduction work? The hair shaft absorbs the light of a specific wavelength causing heating of the hair follicle. Skin contains two substances that compete with the hair to absorb the laser light: skin color (melanin) and blood (hemoglobin).

Memphis Laser Hair Reduction

The Plastic Surgery Group of Memphis has just acquired a hair reduction laser, the LightSheer by Lumenis that manages the “competition”. The LightSheer hand piece gently draws up and stretches the skin. This draws the hair follicle closer to the light source, temporarily reduces the concentration of melanin contain cells, temporarily pushes hemoglobin out from under the skin surface, all while providing light anesthesia. 

The large size of the hand piece allows faster treatment. For additional information regarding the lasers, click here for the Lumenis website.

Men and women of all skin tones can have laser hair reduction using the lasers available at the Plastic Surgery Group of Memphis. The speed and minimal discomfort of the LightSheer permits many areas to be treated that previously were not options, such as men’s backs and beards, and women’s underarms and bikini areas.

If you want to break free from the routine of shaving and waxing, make an appointment for a laser hair reduction consult today.