No Gain without Pain: Plastic Surgery in China

No Gain without Pain: Plastic Surgery in China
May 21, 2011 By Carmen Halford , eChinacities.com

With over three million people a year undergoing plastic surgery, the plastic surgery market has exploded in China, becoming an industry worth more than 10 billion yuan a year and now the fourth largest consumption market in the country after housing, vehicles and tourism. Why are people rushing to the operating table? And is it safe?

Most plastic surgery patients are women, and many are younger than you might think. In summer 2010, four out of five people going in for surgery were high school and college students. Many chose surgery to gain a competitive edge in the fierce job market they’ll enter after graduation. In China, anti-discrimination laws forbid employers from hiring based on race, ethnicity, sex and religion. Anything else is fair game, a fact many companies take full advantage of. Help-wanted postings often list requirements for height, weight and age, and in one case a tea plantation insisted on only hiring C-cup virgins to fill tea picker positions.

To compete, girls go in for quite a kaleidoscope of procedures, with eye tucks (to create a crease in the eyelid), nose jobs (often for taller, more “Western” noses) and breast implants all at the top of the list. Painful jaw shavings for “softer” faces, an operation that led to the highly publicized death of Wang Bei, an aspiring Chinese pop singer, just last year are also popular.

Many of these girls explain that even slight differences in appearance will have a direct effect on their chances in an interview.

“They may not say it openly, but during the process they will pick the prettier one,” college senior Stephanie Yang told the LA Times. Only 21, she had just undergone an operation for double eyelids.

Statistics indicate that perhaps the largest category of surgeries is “repair” operations for plastic surgeries that failed in the past. In the past 10 years, about 200,000 cases of disfigurement from plastic surgery have been reported, and in 2008 every four in 10 procedures “failed,” resulting in demands for redoes. Only about 50% of repair operations are successful, leaving many patients permanently scarred or worse.

A big reason for these failures is the lack of qualified surgeons here. China has only allowed plastic surgery for purely cosmetic reasons since 2001, and there just aren’t enough trained professionals to keep up with the torrential demand. Unlicensed surgeons, some with backgrounds in other fields of medicine and some with no formal training whatsoever, open shop in “black” (illegal) hospitals and salons, offering services on the cheap, and attracting an estimated 60% of China’s plastic surgery business. Some licensed hospitals also knowingly hire these charlatans to save money. Still, advertisements for risk-free miracle surgeries and dirt cheap prices have crowds of people elbowing their way into doctors’ offices.

Just how cheap are we talking about?

Medical Sciences Plastic Surgery Hospital, which practices plastic surgery legally in Beijing, offers a double eyelid tuck and rhinoplasty combo that can run as low as 8,000 Yuan a pop. Compare that to about $15,000 US for the same surgeries in the States. If you’re willing to have the procedure done in a hair salon, you can get an even better deal: a double eyelid tuck for around 300 RMB.

But before you whip out your wallet take some time to seriously think about your decision. Besides the obvious problem of finding a qualified surgeon, surgery abroad presents quite a few practical difficulties. Doctors do not have access to your medical records, and if something goes wrong you will have to rely on the Chinese legal system to resolve it. If the hospital you went to is owned by a government agency (which most Chinese hospitals are), you could wind up suing the government, a tricky situation that could leave you wallowing in what an article from the Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics described as China’s “malpractice crisis.” And, with such a high rate of botched up procedures, do you really want to run the risk of becoming permanently disfigured? All things considered, this is one trend you might regret rushing into in China.

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Keywords: China plastic surgery plastic surgery trends China how safe is plastic surgery China cosmetic surgery China

3 Comments

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Caroline

Does anybody know about esthetic dental clinics in Beijing ?
I would like to have facings or veneers put on my theeth

Jun 10, 2011 13:37 Report Abuse

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Jun 10, 2011 16:33 Report Abuse

bunny

i read recently that an american women is being prosecuted for injecting her 8 year old daughter with botox to try to help her win in a beauty pageant. her reason? "all the other mothers were doing it"

May 21, 2011 08:17 Report Abuse