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Incisive commentary slices and dices plastic 'surgeons'
By John Gong |
January 7, 2009, Wednesday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
A RECENT Reuters report about a famed plastic "surgeon" in China reminds me of my father's longtime friend in Shanghai who is also a plastic surgeon.
Reuter's coverage on November 17 of Mrs Shi Sanba, which was later followed by a CNN version, speaks volumes not only about how low China's plastic surgery industry has sunk, but also how low journalism at these two Western mainstream news outlets has sunk.
Mrs Shi Sanba operates one of the largest plastic surgery "hospitals" in Beijing.
She is touted in the Reuters report as China's answer to Michael Jackson's fixation on metamorphosis from black to white, having been under the knife 40 or 50 times - it has been so often that she doesn't really remember.
Not to be outgunned, the CNN's version crowned her with the title "China's plastic surgery queen."
The woman is courageous for not just being on this side of a surgery knife, but also on the other side as well.
She proclaims herself as a plastic "surgeon" with over 10 years of experience, and has performed at least as many operations on others as others have performed on her.
But after digging into her background a little, I find myself so baffled that my almost religious faith in the word "doctor" is shaken.
I read Mrs Shi Sanba's resume online.
From 1970 to 1984, the woman's career alternated between cashier, singer and theatric performer at a small local song and dance ensemble in Henan Province.
After spending just a year at a plastic surgery training school in Hong Kong in 1985, her fortune started to turn with the opening of her first plastic surgery "hospital" in Henan.
The only problem is that I can't find a Website for that school she claimed to have attended in Hong Kong.
After much meandering, let me introduce Dr Ti-Sheng Chang. If CNN calls the other "doctor" the "queen of plastic surgery" in China, I have no doubt that Dr Chang is the king.
In fact, I would even venture to say that Dr Chang is the father of plastic and reconstructive surgery in China.
His career can be traced back to the war years in the early 1940s. After the war, he went to the United States to study plastic and reconstructive surgery with Dr Robert H. Ivy in Philadelphia, one of the founding fathers of that medical specialty.
He returned to China in 1948, and started China's first reconstructive surgery practice at the 9th People's Hospital in Shanghai.
Since then, he has performed over 1,000 surgeries ranging from simple facial beautifying procedures to complex micro-surgeries as narrowing the distance between the eyes and restoring damaged scalp.
One of his most outstanding achievements is the world's first reconstruction of a penis in 1982, using tissues from the patient's arm.
The patient lost his penis to the blades of a machine during an accident. That operation astonished the circle of the celebrity doctors in that field. Ever since then, the 9th People's Hospital has performed over 150 such operations.
In the 26 operations Dr Chang performed himself, every patient's penis has the normal basic functions; seven of them have fathered children.
The comparison between the king and the queen of plastic surgery in China makes me wonder what has happened to our society in general and the plastic surgery industry in particular.
Medical training and surgery skill seem to be lost to marketing and business acumen in winning people's trust to go under a scalpel. Mrs Shi can't even show me a bachelor's degree in anything, while Dr Chang is an academician of the prestigious Chinese Academy of Engineering.
Mrs Shi is mega rich now with her grandiose "hospital" in one of the most expensive real estate properties in Beijing. Dr Chang lives in a modest three-bedroom condo near the publicly owned 9th People's hospital in Shanghai.
Mrs Shi attracts attention from Reuters and the CNNs of the world. Dr Chang may not even care about Shanghai Daily's kindness in publishing this article.
The plastic surgery industry needs more stringent government regulation.
Here is what the American Board of Plastic Surgeons says about the required qualification: "Training to become a plastic surgeon is one of the most rigorous pathways known to medicine. To become board certified by the American Board of Plastic Surgery a physician must complete a specialized post-graduate training course of five to seven years (this is in addition to training in medical school that usually lasts five years)."
Public awareness about the wide gaps in plastic surgery's quality and qualifications of "surgeons" needs to be raised. The status of the industry is reminiscent of the Gresham's law in economics, which essentially says that bad money will eventually drive good money out of the market. That has to change.
Here is the best-kept secret of the plastic surgery industry in China.
At age 94, the former head of the 9th People's Hospital still keeps an office there.
Dr Chang sees patients only in morning Monday to Friday. He needs to take a nap in the afternoon.
(The author is an economist based in Beijing. He can be reached at: johngong@gmail.com)
Reuter's coverage on November 17 of Mrs Shi Sanba, which was later followed by a CNN version, speaks volumes not only about how low China's plastic surgery industry has sunk, but also how low journalism at these two Western mainstream news outlets has sunk.
Mrs Shi Sanba operates one of the largest plastic surgery "hospitals" in Beijing.
She is touted in the Reuters report as China's answer to Michael Jackson's fixation on metamorphosis from black to white, having been under the knife 40 or 50 times - it has been so often that she doesn't really remember.
Not to be outgunned, the CNN's version crowned her with the title "China's plastic surgery queen."
The woman is courageous for not just being on this side of a surgery knife, but also on the other side as well.
She proclaims herself as a plastic "surgeon" with over 10 years of experience, and has performed at least as many operations on others as others have performed on her.
But after digging into her background a little, I find myself so baffled that my almost religious faith in the word "doctor" is shaken.
I read Mrs Shi Sanba's resume online.
From 1970 to 1984, the woman's career alternated between cashier, singer and theatric performer at a small local song and dance ensemble in Henan Province.
After spending just a year at a plastic surgery training school in Hong Kong in 1985, her fortune started to turn with the opening of her first plastic surgery "hospital" in Henan.
The only problem is that I can't find a Website for that school she claimed to have attended in Hong Kong.
After much meandering, let me introduce Dr Ti-Sheng Chang. If CNN calls the other "doctor" the "queen of plastic surgery" in China, I have no doubt that Dr Chang is the king.
In fact, I would even venture to say that Dr Chang is the father of plastic and reconstructive surgery in China.
His career can be traced back to the war years in the early 1940s. After the war, he went to the United States to study plastic and reconstructive surgery with Dr Robert H. Ivy in Philadelphia, one of the founding fathers of that medical specialty.
He returned to China in 1948, and started China's first reconstructive surgery practice at the 9th People's Hospital in Shanghai.
Since then, he has performed over 1,000 surgeries ranging from simple facial beautifying procedures to complex micro-surgeries as narrowing the distance between the eyes and restoring damaged scalp.
One of his most outstanding achievements is the world's first reconstruction of a penis in 1982, using tissues from the patient's arm.
The patient lost his penis to the blades of a machine during an accident. That operation astonished the circle of the celebrity doctors in that field. Ever since then, the 9th People's Hospital has performed over 150 such operations.
In the 26 operations Dr Chang performed himself, every patient's penis has the normal basic functions; seven of them have fathered children.
The comparison between the king and the queen of plastic surgery in China makes me wonder what has happened to our society in general and the plastic surgery industry in particular.
Medical training and surgery skill seem to be lost to marketing and business acumen in winning people's trust to go under a scalpel. Mrs Shi can't even show me a bachelor's degree in anything, while Dr Chang is an academician of the prestigious Chinese Academy of Engineering.
Mrs Shi is mega rich now with her grandiose "hospital" in one of the most expensive real estate properties in Beijing. Dr Chang lives in a modest three-bedroom condo near the publicly owned 9th People's hospital in Shanghai.
Mrs Shi attracts attention from Reuters and the CNNs of the world. Dr Chang may not even care about Shanghai Daily's kindness in publishing this article.
The plastic surgery industry needs more stringent government regulation.
Here is what the American Board of Plastic Surgeons says about the required qualification: "Training to become a plastic surgeon is one of the most rigorous pathways known to medicine. To become board certified by the American Board of Plastic Surgery a physician must complete a specialized post-graduate training course of five to seven years (this is in addition to training in medical school that usually lasts five years)."
Public awareness about the wide gaps in plastic surgery's quality and qualifications of "surgeons" needs to be raised. The status of the industry is reminiscent of the Gresham's law in economics, which essentially says that bad money will eventually drive good money out of the market. That has to change.
Here is the best-kept secret of the plastic surgery industry in China.
At age 94, the former head of the 9th People's Hospital still keeps an office there.
Dr Chang sees patients only in morning Monday to Friday. He needs to take a nap in the afternoon.
(The author is an economist based in Beijing. He can be reached at: johngong@gmail.com)
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