Zoom

Prof. Sunil Gaba says in the last year there has been an almost 20 per cent increase in cosmetic surgery, with the Department doing close to 500 surgeries ...

Unless the patient and the surgeon were not on the same page in identifying the problem, and achieving the final aesthetic solutions were clearly understood, explained and consent taken.” Each patient has a unique set of problems, anatomical structure, and expectations, and living up to them and addressing them is the most challenging and rewarding experience for a plastic surgeon.” There is a long waiting time at the PGI for cosmetic procedures, sometimes more than six months, and the cost of rhinoplasty is about Rs 20,000 to 25,000. Open or closed rhinoplasty is the most rewarding surgery to correct the most prominent feature on the face. Over the course of my career, I have visited many top centres of plastic surgery around the world, and it is important that people do not walk into inexperienced hands by visiting online clinics.” Seeing your face in the mirror, reflects Prof Gaba, is altogether different from seeing it on the screen with a front-facing camera. People between the age group of 25 and 45 thronged the plastic surgery centres/departments for rectification of facial features like eye bags, wrinkles, sagging skin and even minute deformities of the nose as they had more time to look and their faces and became more aware of the apparent imperfections during the lockdown,” adds Prof Gaba, who during Covid has also done a number of reconstruction surgeries of patients of A fall at the age of six and the injury pushed in her nose and at that age, she had pronounced that “one day I will get plastic surgery for my nose”. She wasn’t comfortable with the options offered and also felt a lack of transparency and a comfort level with the practitioners she had met. The nose being the most prominent feature of the face, we had scores of patients seeking rhinoplasty. The unanticipated ‘Zoom Boom’ was a crucial factor, he notes, for it gave a new perspective. It’s not for anyone else, but my own self, that I decided to go for the surgery, for beauty is a personal matter.”