Newport Beach,California, plastic surgeon  Semira Bayati, M.D. swung into action. She reduced the fracture as much as she could, used another passenger’s crutch for a splint and extra seat belts to hold it in place. Dr. Bayati also started an I.V. (Read more about the good Sam plastic surgeon.)

Actually, plastic surgeons doing humanitarian deeds is nothing new.

Currently, according to the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons (ISAPS), volunteers from America are rotating plastic surgeons in and out of Haiti to perform the huge number of reconstructive plastic surgery that is needed. Most weeks, 21 plastic surgeon volunteers are on hand.

It need not be a massive disaster for plastic surgeons to swing into action. Many donate without fanfare their hard-earned, vast surgical skills to many organizations including:

• Operation Smile – donates cleft lip and palate surgery
• Face to Face – treats U.S. victims of domestic abuse
• Plasticos Foundation – free plastic surgery for third world citizens
• Interplast – free reconstructive plastic surgery in poor  nations

Sometimes, medicine doesn’t have anything to do with a cosmetic plastic surgeon jumping into the fray.

Back in 2006, Robert Rey, M.D. (of Dr. 90210 fame) was on an American Airlines flight when he noticed a passenger becoming unruly, shoving a flight attendant and appearing to be heading for the cockpit.

Because Dr. Rey holds a black belt in the Korean martial art Tae Kwon Do, he gladly intercepted the passenger with the help of another man and then reverted into his role as a doctor, checking the unruly passenger’s vital signs to make sure a medical episode was not in progress.

That passenger was far luckier than a bold street tough who crept up behind Dr. Rey and wife Hayley while the couple was vacationing in New Orleans and pinched Hayley on her rear.

Dr. Rey sensed a threat as well as an insult, let his martial arts training go and put the creep on his own posterior after a flurry of hand and foot strikes.

According to the Reys, the man looked up from the sidewalk, saying “Enough! Enough!  I’m sorry!”

Hedy Lamarr as Delilah

Just about everybody in the known world knows that breast implants are available for women.

But more men are also embracing the twin worlds of plastic and cosmetic surgery and are delighted to find they have implants designed just for them….mostly for them alone.

In first place, would be testicle implants. Those are often needed due to:

• Undescended testicles in boys, teens and men
• Traumatic injury to the natural testicles
• Cancer surgery

Sorry guys, but silicone testicular implants are not approved by the FDA.  Only saline is available.

Sometimes, body builders get tired of the required endless hours lifting weights in gyms and take a shorter route, with the help of a plastic surgeon and specially designed implants, including those made for:

• Pectoral augmentation. (“Pecs” are the square-shaped chest muscles.)
• Calf Augmentation. (Body builders like to have well developed lower bodies, too.)
• Deltoid augmentation. (The “Delts” run down the side of the torso from the armpits to mid waist.)
• Bicep and Tricep Augmentation. (Yes, some men cheat and just get surgical implants to put massive bulk and definition to the top and bottom sides of their upper arms.)

If men have complained for decades about women that they, the guys, never know what they are really up against – thanks to breast augmentation — it’s only fair for the fellows to have an equally easy way to have and show those (allegedly) oh-so-powerful arms.

Hint: offer to arm wrestle any new buffed-out guys in your life. If he declines, he just may have arm implants and not the actual strength to be Sampson to your Delilah.

Another dead-bang giveaway: he won’t be able to carry you across the threshold…. physically, anyhow.

Many guys also avail themselves of:

• Cheek implants
• Chin implants
• Nose implants
• Lip implants

Chrisi Brinkley and Daughter Alexa Before and After Plastic Surgery. Star Photo

It seems like life and culture run in cycles with what’s old becoming new again.

Back in 2005, at the height of the plastic surgery boom, a common occurrence was for couples – husbands and wives, parents and siblings, boy-and-girl friends, gal pals and others – to go under the knife together.

That’s exactly what supermodel Christie Brinkley and her singer-songwriter daughter Alexa Ray Joel did recently.

Moreover, they had cosmetic surgery for all the right reasons!

When interviewing potential patients, plastic surgeons look for the appropriate motivation for having plastic surgery.

Wanting to look like a celebrity, wanting to feel better after a divorce or because somebody else wants you to look better just does not cut it.

Typically, the green light is given when the patient says something to the effect that a particular body part or feature has always been:

• Bothersome
• Causes embarrassment
• Does not match the energetic, youthful person on the inside

Anyone with eyes can see that Alexa has inherited 99 percent of her mother’s beauty and, apparently, all of Billy Joel’s music talent. So why, many ask, should such an already attractive, gifted person have cosmetic plastic surgery?

Alexa told People Magazine: “I was thinking about this for years..my nose always bothered me a little bit. I was self-conscious of pictures taken from the side.”

Boom! Rhinoplasty is a done deal for New York board-certified plastic surgeon Norman Rowe, M.D. who also performed a mini face lift on mom Christi. Alex’s nose is not radically different; a front view shows just a slightly slimmer nose. (We would love to see a profile!)

Looking at the before and after plastic surgery pictures, you can see Christi’s changes are also very slight, with a lower blepharoplasty (eye bag removal) and softening of the nasolabial lines, the facial folds that run from the corner of the nose to the edge of the mouth.

We would love to see a before and after of her neck. The most prominent neck muscle, the platysma, starts creating a so-called turkey gobbler neck about Christi’s current age (56) and can often use surgical tightening. (Look at some before and after neck surgery pictures.)

Remember our last post about bad or overdone plastic surgery and Hollywood?

Casting directors would have no gripes if everybody had cosmetic surgery this well done and natural looking!

More jobs? Certainly. More new cars sold? Maybe. People getting more cosmetic plastic surgery? Without doubt!

On March 21^st, the Associated Press circulated a story worldwide telling how plastic surgeons in Iraq are now being overwhelmed by patients wanting nose jobs, Botox, liposuction and more.

(Read more about the new demand for plastic surgery in Iraq.)

Because plastic surgeons are also trained in reconstructive surgery, those same doctors had been busy treating scars, burns and poorly healed wounds.

But, guess what? Cosmetic plastic surgery has been a harbinger of better times before.

Take Afghanistan, for instance. At war since the late 70s or under the thumb of oppressive rulers, things started getting better in 2005, with allied nations chasing the Taliban and Al-Qaeda into the distant hills.

Then, relative peace, security and prosperity came to the larger Afghan cities like Kabul, its capitol.

The opening of the Hamkar Surgical Clinic, the first Afghan cosmetic surgery clinic in the nation, made headlines worldwide. People there also wanted breast augmentations, eyelid lifts, nose jobs and removal of facial wrinkles.

On the other side of the globe, in China, prosperous times mean that more people are now asking about – and having – much more cosmetic plastic surgery.

 According to China Daily, plastic surgery procedures in Beijing have doubled this year, with the typical patient being young, shapely and determined to stay that way.

China also was the first to hold a beauty contest just for women who have had cosmetic plastic surgery. The idea was triggered when a Chinese woman spent about $13,000 on cosmetic surgery only to be disqualified from the contest because she had breast implants and a face lift.

Yet another emerging economy, Hungary, also organized a similar contest. (Read more in our post about Miss Plastic Surgery.)

As of 2004, about $2.4 billion was spent on rejuvenation surgery in China. That amount has probably doubled to come close to the $10 billion that Americans spent on cosmetic plastic surgery in 2009.

Not foreseeing the Great Depression in America, President Hoover promised a continuing time of prosperity as “a chicken in every pot”.

So will newer politicians in nations emerging from hard times now promise “a lift on every face” as the yard stick for measuring good times?

An increasingly second reason is  found in the workplace. Nobody wants to look haggard, tired or careworn due to aging features.

And that seems to apply to all peoples, worldwide.

It used to be that the East was strictly Red. China is still plenty Red but also more concerned about having red faces due to their appearances in public.

Hey, any government official courting big-spending capitalists has to promote an image of ability, energy and warmth if he is going to seal the deal!

Thus, many more Chinese communist government officials have been going under the knife for plastic surgery at Beijing’s Union Medical College, according to senior surgeon Chen Huanran who says 500 government workers yearly are having cosmetic plastic surgery to enhance the “strong features” the Chinese public expects of its leaders.

According to Huanran, more officials in the 40 to 60 age bracket are going on television and making other public appearances. The surgeon also says about 20 percent of his own patients are employed by the Chinese government:

Thus, the most popular cosmetic procedures among this group of Comrades are:

• Eyelid lift
• Botox & wrinkle fillers
• Facial reconstruction and rejuvenation.

Because the Chinese government is so heavily involved in rounding up foreign investments, many foreign marketing firms also make gifts of cosmetic surgery to Chinese officials and their wives.

In China, plastic surgery is a $243 billion dollar industry that is growing 20 percent yearly.

Is it any wonder China organized its own beauty contest for plastic surgery patients much like the recent Miss Plastic Hungary contest?

Now, we don’t intend to steal the thunder of your favorite cosmetic dentist but the area around the mouth can reduce a set of perfect, dazzling teeth to only a so-so smile.

Psychology professor Matthew Hertenstein at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana, and three colleagues wondered how a beaming smile affected a person’s personal life. So the doc collared 600 volunteers who had college yearbook pictures available.

The psychologists then ranked the smiles.

Findings? The less people smiled, the more likely they would divorce later on in life.

Professor Hertenstein compared the top ten percent of biggest smilers with the basement dwelling ten percent of smilers. He found that lousy smilers were five times more likely to split the sheets than those with wide grins.

So where do plastic cosmetic surgeons fit into this picture?

It all relates to an area in plastic surgery known as Expression Surgery.

If your mouth area is wrinkled and the corners of your mouth turn down because of facial folds known as Marionette lines, cosmetic surgery has some relief. If your eyelids are baggy and hanging down over your eyes, you will look older and more haggard as well as less friendly. A plastic surgeon can let that smile-enhancing twinkle in your eyes shine through by reducing the bags that form under your eyes.

Start with the lips. As we age, the once lush, plump lips of both men and women tend to slim down considerably. Even in men (check out a 1970-ish picture of Burt Reynolds!) plump lips not only frame a smile but indicate desirability. Many handy products – like Juvederm and Restylane – are available for lip augmentation.

If the skin around the mouth is badly wrinkled, even a megawatt smile will be dimmed. But a chemical peel, a laser peel or dermabrasion, you can make that area much more appealing.

For the Marionette lines, the folds that run from the edges of the mouth down the chin, even more facial fillers than Juvederm and Restylane are now available.

Some plastic surgeons even have procedures to surgically lift downturned edges at the corner of the mouth, enhancing your smile.

Interesting in twinkling eyes? Read more about eyelid surgery.

Recently announced:  a new plastic surgery application for the iPhone.

Its pitch is to people who are interested in cosmetic plastic surgery and may be wondering what they would look like afterwards.

Invented by a Miami Beach plastic surgeon, the iSurgeon application lets the user take a picture of his or her face or body and then upload the snapshot to the phone’s screen.

Once there, you can manipulate the features by dragging them around with your finger.

Then, once you have a picture of your newly enhanced self, you can send it off to friends.

Only thing is, plastic surgery is whole lot more complicated than moving images on a screen. For instance, in an eyelid lift, if the lids are raised too much, it will give you brighter eyes but, in reality, your eyelids may not close!

Or, say you have deep worry lines in your forehead. So you just adjust the area above the eyebrows upwards and take out all the lines. But if you take out too much, the real-life results would be a perpetual surprise look as in what happened!?

O.K., so how do you know when a little manipulation can be too much? It’s a long process known as medical school, followed by four to seven years of plastic surgery training. Take our word, it all takes years.

Additionally, plastic and cosmetic surgeons already have programs on computers that show you what can realistically be changed on the human face and body. And what you are very likely to look like after surgery.

Morphing programs upload an existing picture onto a screen and then a trained, experienced plastic surgeon shows the patient how much change can realistically be expected on a given facial or body feature.

A 2007 study, printed in the April issue of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery asked 12 plastic surgery experts to analyze the before plastic surgery pictures of 25 rhinoplasty patients and then figure how close the predicted pictures came to showing the actual results of nose surgery.

Results? 75 percent of the experts said the predicted picture was the same, or even better, than the surgical outcome.

The rhinoplasty article also said surgeons should be conservative when showing patients their predicted results so no false hopes would be raised.

(Read the FBI bulletin about the plastic surgery-loving fugitive.)

This could be a case of life imitating art – in particular, some Hollywood movies about fugitives who went on the lam, had cosmetic surgery in secret (usually by a mob-connected surgeon) and then walked around virtually unrecognized.

One of the most famous movies of that ilk was when a wrongfully convicted man – skillfully played by the famous Humphrey Bogart – broke out of San Quentin, had some back alley cosmetic surgery and ended up looking totally different than his incarcerated self.

That 1947 film, Dark Passage, gave millions the idea that a total, unrecognizable change was plastic surgery’s aim.

In reality, however, rejuvenation surgery only makes you look like a more rested and refreshed version of yourself. You still look very much like you.

Perhaps the modern day fugutuve Ravelo saw Bogart’s old movie and decided to visit some plastic surgeons in Juarez, the city across the river from El Paso, Texas.

Described as a 5-feet-9-inch, 150 to 180 pound man in his 40’s witha facial scar and tattoos on his chest, stomach and back, what could Ravelo ask of a plastic surgeon to change his, Ravelo’s, appearance?

• Scar Remediation -facial, acne and other scars are frequently removed by surgery, dermabrasion and by laser surgery. In  the majority of cases, some slight trace of the scar remains but is far less noticable.  Plus, it does not take place overnight, often requiring six to twelve months. 

• Tattoo Removal – Another procedure that can take multiple treatments over some months, tattoo removal is usually done with various lasers that break apart the ink in the tattoo. It becomes complicated because different lasers are required to break up different colored tattoo inks. (Bast tactic of all? Don’t get one!

• Nasal Surgery – When rhinoplasty is performed on a wide , humped or long nose, the eye automatically is thrown to the eyes. Otherwise, the unrepaired nose is the center of attention.

But the bad news – for suspects on the lam, anyhow – is that they will still look like the person pictured on their wanted posters.

Last December, the staff of Dorian, a Swedish gay magazine, devoted a whole issue to the superficial, including  plastic and cosmetic surgery. And the question of how to research the topic came up.

So the staff did the obvious thing – everybody had some rejuvenation surgery so they could take Hemingway’s advice to heart and write about what they know best.

While each staffer had an unspecified “mini-makeover”, the other procedures included:

• Facial liposuction
• Lip augmentation
• Rhinoplasty
• Face lift
• Muscle enhancement

News reports did not specify which muscle enhancements, but silicone implants — to suggest built up muscles — are available for mens’ chests, sides, biceps, buttocks and lower legs. (However, most guys develop bulging muscles between their ears all on their own!)

Dorian’s editor-in-chief Benjamin Falk wrote he would indeed recommend plastic surgery to others who want to “freshen up their looks a little” but don’t expect the surgery to bring life-altering circumstances. Bravo Benjamin!

Meanwhile, in England, Bucks Fizz, a rock band that had hits in the early to mid-1980s, made an appearance on an off-the-wall television program, (we are not making this up!) Pop Goes the Band.

The show brings back a once-famous band and puts the rockers through fitness training, makeovers and cosmetic surgery. Then the rockers show pictures from back in the day and compare those shots to the more current after plastic surgery pictures.

What could be next for plastic surgery and television?

With the trend in reality television, perhaps the handwriting is already on the wall.

One possible show could be named something like Plastic Surgery Survival Island.

Every month, a new group of plastic surgery patients crowd onto a lovely South Seas island and vie for the one most improved appearance prize worth bazillions of  the network’s dollars.

Week by week, as bandages come off, swelling and bruises go away and stitches are removed, contestants are voted off the island, until one glorious rejuvenated survivor remains to take it all.

What type of plastic surgery program would you like to see on television?

In addition to standard liposuction machines which remove fat by suction, an array of high-tech machines are put being forth to remove unsightly flab.

Nonetheless, most board-certified plastic surgeons agree that the gold standard in surgical fat removal is still the procedure known as “tumescent liposuction.”

But in case you were wondering, here are a few gizmos competing for your attention and fat removal dollar, including:

• SmartLipo

Also known as SlimLipo, LipoSculpt and Cool Lipo, these lasers melt, and not suck, fat. Some surgeons use suction to remove the fat while others let the body absorb the melted fat.

Plastic surgery is evidence-based medicine and so far, no reliable scientific evidence exists that that laser-assisted liposuction can:

• Tighten skin
• Work better than basic liposuction

Downside: The machines cost upwards of $150,000 and drive up patients’ cost for the procedures. Tumescent liposuction does virtually all of what laser liposuction does, making the extra high cost questionable.

• VASER (Vibration Amplification of Sound Energy at Resonance) liposuction. High energy sound waves emulsify fat which is then removed by suction.

Proponents say VASER spares blood vessels and other tissues, resulting in less swelling and bruising.

But not many plastic surgeons use it. If it’s so good, why do most cosmetic surgeons still use tumescent liposuction?

So what is real and what is just hyper marketing?

Our take: the most important choice you can make is the surgeon, him-or-herself!

Various plastic surgeons achieve all type of wonderful results using many types of surgical tools and equipment. Would you hire a carpenter who used an extra fancy hammer? So put your judgment to work studying surgeons’ results!

That’s why plastic surgery before and after pictures are so important and useful.

Also, check and make sure the plastic surgeon you want to use is board certified. (Learn more about plastic surgery board certification.)