There’s no whispering, questioning or denying at this pageant: yes, the winner did have plastic surgery. So did the runners up, as did everyone else who entered. Miss Plastic Surgery Hungary 2009 is a pageant meant to help show women what plastic surgery can do for a woman and to promote it in a country where cosmetic surgery isn’t a popular option.
There were 18 contestants and they had to prove that they had had cosmetic surgery to be eligible; Botox and other types of injections were not considered. While the type of surgery didn’t matter, the majority of the women …read more

Recently I had laser surgery done on my varicose veins. My specialist had given me the choice of having the veins stripped or lasered.  What he didn’t realize was that to me there was no choice. I had no desire to be put under general anasthetic to have the veins stripped.
But for millions of people around the world, there is no choice. The surgery treatment they need requires them to have a general anesthetic (GA). And anyone who has to have a GA really should get all the facts before that happens. Unfortunately, that’s not always something they get from …read more

Robots might be the future of surgery, but it wasn’t always this way. Surgery was once very primitive and extensive.  Anyone interested in the not only the history of surgery but also it’s future should watch this fascinating TED talk by surgeon and inventor Catherine Mohr.
Warning: Not for the squemish. Catherine takes us on a tour of the history of surgery in all it’s pre-painkiller, pre-antiseptic glory and then head to the present and future with demos of some of the newest tools for surgery, nimble robot hands able to work through the smallest of surgical incisions.

Face Transplants – science fiction or medical reality?
French surgeon Laurent Lantieri, one of the doctors involved in operating on a Chinese man severely disfigured by a genetic disease, believes they are becoming a medical reality. He’s quoted in a recent article in The Lancet as saying “There is no reason to think these face transplants would not be as common as kidney or liver transplants one day”.
Just three years after the successful partial face transplant for a French woman viciously attacked by a dog, two more people have benefited from partial face transplants using tissue from deceased or comatose donors.
One …read more

Remember Lakshmi Tatma, a Indian girl who was born with four arms and four legs. We first wrote about her in December 2007, saying…
The people of her rural Indian village did not see this as a deformity. They believed that she was a ‘gift from God’, christened her ‘Lakshmi‘ after the four-armed Hindu Goddess of wealth, and queued outside the house to be blessed by the girl.
But the actual cause of the extra limbs was that the girl had a twin who hadn’t fully developed and instead became attached to Lakshmi’s body at the pelvis.
Lakshmi made headlines around the world …read more

Finally, sleeping after no sleep for three years – most new parents expect that their sleep will be disturbed, at least during the first few months after having a baby. But imagine ‘no sleep for three years’. That’s the case for the Lamb family of St.Petersburg, Florida.
 Their son Rhett suffers from chiari malformation , a structural defect that puts pressure on the brain stem which controls vital functions such as sleep, speech, circulation, and breathing. But thanks to experimental surgery designed to relieve this pressure, Rhett (and his parents) are now sleeping…
Unable to Forget – although most of us would …read more

First there was the Tree Man. There there was the baby with two faces. Now, backwards, upside-down feet? Oh yeah.
Now let’s be clear that we are in no way, no how poking any kind of fun at these poor people. But it’s just amazing to see the different ways the body can betray itself, is it not? Of course it is.
So next up in our Weird Deformity Breakdown is Jingle Luis, a 15-year-old girl from the Philippines who was born with feet clubbed so badly they twist backwards and upside down (see a photo slideshow at MSN.com)
Today, Jingle had surgery …read more

You know when there is a book being marketed to the children of moms undergoing plastic surgery that the world we live in has changed…drastically.
Now, you will never, ever find me saying that plastic surgery is wrong. That is a completely individual choice, and one I would never even rule out for myself. But what you will find is me noting my surprise that there is a need for such a book.
Dr. Michael Saulzhauer, the author of “My Beautiful Mommy”, due out this Mother’s Day, drafted the book’s manuscript after seeing moms with their kids in tow during plastic surgery …read more

Lots of interesting news this week.
Let’s talk transplants…
US doctors at John Hopkins Hospital recently performed what is believed to be the world’s first simulanteous six-way kidney transplant. Can you imagine that? Twelve people were operated on at the same time, with kidneys removed from six people and transplanted into six other people.
Why all at once? In the words of Jeanne Heise who received a kidney from one donor while her husband was donating a kidney to another patient…
“The waiting list for a kidney is very long and too many people die while waiting. With this group procedure, more and more …read more

With it still being Heart Month and all, I thought I’d see if I could find some ‘feel good’ stories that will turn us all to mush and tug at the heart string.
Turns out it’s easier to find bad news than good. But I did manage to round up a few happy health stories for The Sunday Sidebar.
Marines Help Heal Girl’s Broken Heart
She was a two year old Iraqi girl born with a large hole in her heart and a severe obstruction between her heart and lungs. They were a group of battle weary US Marines. One could say that …read more