A Lebanese Standing on Plastic Surgery
by Rana Tabbara
‘Beauty without brains’ is a phrase often used to judge a book by its cover. A lot of people judge those who underwent plastic surgeries as shallow, disregarding the truth behind their story; they also permit their prejudices to make them believe that all good looking people have undergone plastic surgeries.
Plastic surgery taboos continue to persist in some parts of the world but not in Lebanon. The country is considered the Middle East’s Mecca for plastic surgeries. Even locals are investing time and money in the beauty industry.
The Lebanese plastic surgery industry has flourished in recent years with surgically enhanced beauty becoming increasingly desirable among locals. Lebanon’s First National Bank even offers loans of up to $5,000 for cosmetic surgery.
The country is luring in more and more clients from further and further afield, eager to take advantage of Lebanon’s renowned medical experts.
El Khoury’s clinic has experienced a 25 percent increase in foreign patients over the past 12 months. Clients arrive from other Arab countries in the Gulf, as well as North Africa.
“We don’t have proper statistics, so it is impossible to tell accurately, but we estimate about 20 percent of our business is people from abroad,” said Sami Saad, Lebanon’s representative at the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery.
Such is the demand that a travel company has even been set up to help so-called medical tourists book their trip to Lebanon. Dubai-based Image Concept finds tourists the right accommodation and, importantly, the medics to perform the desired procedures.
“We’re able to make their reservations, give them the right addresses and hook them up with the right doctors, because we have priority access with many of the doctors and hospitals,” said Zeina El Haj, Image Concept’s founder.
El Haj said her clients mainly come from the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, but there are also requests from Europe, the United States and even New Zealand.
“Demand has definitely been increasing. People want to look like the stars they admire, they want the nose, or the cheeks, or the teeth of certain celebrities. They want to look good.”
According to El Khoury the procedure most requested by foreign clients is rhinoplasty — nose jobs — of which he completes about 200 per year. He says Lebanon’s appeal for would-be patients is the affordability of its surgeons and its convenient location.
What encourages people to undergo such surgeries is the medical advancement that the surgeons had introduced to Lebanon and the fact that the country has become one of the most plastic surgery friendly environments in the Middle East.
However, the government still advises the patients to make sure that any medical procedure is performed by specialists registered with the Lebanese Society of Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgery (LSPRAS), an internationally-endorsed body set up to regulate the industry.
Statistics gathered from:
http://www.aou.edu.lb/onlineservices/Preface/1129.pdf
