Healthy Living: The art of plastic surgery
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When a child is born with a deformity, parents will do almost anything to help but what if there is no help, no medical assistance, what's next?
When someone needs advanced medical help, the United States is the place to go.
An Iranian mom traveled here for help. Her son Mohammed was born with one eye and no nose. Since he was 4-years-old, a team of doctors have been rebuilding his face. Plastic Surgeon Lucie Capek used a part of his rib to build the bridge of his nose.
"Usually at the end of the rib there is a little cap of cartilage even in adults but especially in kids, so you get some bone with a nice soft cap of cartilage on the end of it and you can shape it and attach it up here under the skin and at the base of the skull here,” said Dr. Lucie Capek, Board Certified Plastic Surgeon.
To build up the tissue around the nose, cartilage and skin is taken from his ear.
When performing such extensive plastic surgery, how do surgeons do it? How do they create, even shape, in this case a nose, with no photos, nothing to go by? How do they do it?
"You can look at his face say perhaps we can measure things but what it comes down to that is the art of plastic surgery comes in. You have to look at his face and as a plastic surgery you have to not only experience it but also have an inclination to having an artistic eye,” said Capek.
Mohammed is far from done. As he gets older, his bones will continue to grow but his nose will not.
"What we definitely can predict is that this will not grow adequately. He will need other surgeries,” said Capek.
With each surgery there is a risk the skin grafts will not survive.
"You can't ever have them looking completely normal with a scarless face because unfortunately unlike a sculptor who is working with clay who can mold and remold when it comes to human tissue and scarring that works against us in many ways,” said Capek.