Meskipun Tingkat Kematiannya Tinggi, Masih Banyak Yang Berpikir Bedah Plastik Bermanfaat

(Despite high death rates many still think plastic surgery is worth the risk)

Last winter, author and satirist Olivia Goldsmith, 54, died on the operating table from complications during six hours of plastic surgery. A few months later, 51 year-old Michele Charest, known for her successful children's books, died of heart failure during a surgical face-lift at Notre Dame Hospital.

Joan Rivers. Roseanne Barr. Barbara Walters. All these celebrities have gone under the knife for countless nip and tucks, lifts and injections and who knows what else. Like these celebrities, Goldsmith and Charest were successful and accomplished women. But unlike Rivers, Barr and Walters, Goldsmith and Charest died tragically.

Read virtually any magazine and you'll encounter the obsession with beauty.

On TV, programs like Extreme Makeover, a show that attempts to cure self esteem problems with plastic surgery is just one of the many vacuous productions that capitalize on our youth obsession.

On ABC's Extreme Makeover we see women who have had so much plastic surgery that they're thrilled when their own children don't recognize them. On MTV's I Want a Famous Face, people who are barely old enough to vote want to be cut to look like Brad or Britney. The Swan, is a show that follows a group of eight women who claim to have had nose jobs, breast implants and liposuction, all for the slim chance to compete in a beauty pageant.

Producers would have us believe the Swan's reality is a true reflection of society. They may have a point.

The American Society of Plastic Surgeons reported there were 8.7 million cosmetic procedures performed in 2003, more than four times the amount done in 1992. Most were non-invasive techniques such as botox injections and chemical peels, but more than 1.7 million procedures done last year involved going under the knife.

Despite the deaths of Goldsmith and Charest, people are still flocking to clinics for procedures.

Formerly exotic procedures, like botox injections to fight wrinkles and Restylane injections for fuller lips, have now become commonplace and acceptable.

The clientele is getting younger, too. Once considered the fountain of youth for the over 40 crowd, nip and tucks and botox injections are gaining popularity among people aged 18-35, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS). The ASPS also reported there were 24 per cent more plastic surgery patients under the age of 18 in 2002 than in the year 2000.

The Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) now identifies that, one in five cosmetic surgery patients is a man. More and more men are refusing to accept baggy eyes, turkey necks, wrinkled brows, a bulging waistline or even love handles. Receding hairlines and greying hair are no longer distinguishing features. Hair implants, liposuction, and penis enlargements are just some of the procedures men are opting for.

Take Gregory Wolf, who gave his real name but was against posing for a picture. Wolf drove down to Toronto on his vacation and walked into Surgeon Mark Dupéré's VISAGE clinic in the Fashion District.

"I read about the clinic and wanted to have a look," he says bashfully, no wrinkles appearing. He shrugs, "I got tired of the lines on my face."

He admits that the deaths of Goldsmith and Charest scare him, but it isn't enough to sway him from another visit to Toronto. "Sure, it is scary...but it is available and I say 'why not'?"

Wolf also considered liposuction, but got hold of an unflattering article in the Globe and Mail and decided against it.

The death rate for liposuction, the popular cosmetic surgery performed mainly in doctors' offices and clinics, is 20 to 60 times higher than the death rate for all operations performed in hospitals, a newly published American Medical Journal survey shows.

Hospital patients undergoing all types of surgery, including risky procedures, die at a rate of 1 in 100,000 to 1 in 300,000. But the liposuction survey, in which 917 plastic surgeons reported deaths caused by liposuction, shows that for every 5,000-liposuction procedures from 1994 to 1998, one patient died. Among the causes were blood clots, anaesthesia problems and internal injuries after the liposuction procedure.

The survey also says more than 172,000 Americans have had liposuction, a procedure in which fat is sucked out of thighs, belly and other parts of the body. Any doctor can perform liposuction, so the actual tally may be more than double that.

Because liposuction is widely regarded as simple and safe, the procedure's high death rate comes as a shock to patients and medical safety advocates.

"The difference [in death rates] is gigantic," says Ellison Pierce, executive director of the Anaesthesiology Patient Safety Foundation, which has been at the forefront of a national effort to reduce medical errors. In her report, she stated, "That's a completely unacceptable mortality rate."

But the concept that physical attractiveness is attainable, and even encouraged, through surgery is a theme at this year's annual meeting of the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery.

"Complications and deaths occurring at office-based surgical facilities are rare," says LaSandra Cooper, a media-relations associate with the ASPS. Cooper stated that, "In a peer-reviewed study of plastic and reconstructive surgery . . . more than 400,000 operative procedures in accredited office-based, outpatient-surgery centres were studied from 2000-2002. Serious complications were infrequent, occurring one in 298 cases or 0.34 per cent, and a death occurred once in 51,459 cases or 0.0019 per cent."

The isue of plastic surgery might come down to one decision: Is it worth the risk just to feel good aesthetically? Of course, that question can only be answered by one person - imperfect body parts and all.

original source: http://media.www.theconcordian.com/

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