Plastic Surgeons

Dr. Charles E. Pappas was decked out in black rather than his usual surgical green as he greeted colleagues and patients at his new office in Fort Washington. Instead of his usual relaxing, classical-music tapes, Pappas had a string quartet playing background music in his waiting room. A full bar was set up in the hallway and waiters in tuxedos offered patients hors d'oeuvres on silver trays. The occasion was the grand opening Friday night of The Institute of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, and it was obvious from the start that this wasn't just another ribbon-cutting ceremony.

It is a story that might have sprung full-blown from the deep well of conspiracy fantasies. All the princes of darkness were there at the beginning of the saga of silicone. Racism. Sexism. Imperialism. Even the military- industrial complex. Silicone made its entry into the female body almost 50 years ago, because Japanese women were trying to attract American soldiers. The conquerors liked bigger breasts and so industrial strength transformer coolant was injected directly into these women.

You wake up each morning and make your way into the bathroom, shutting the door behind you. While brushing your teeth, you stare at yourself in the mirror. Ugh - that schnoz! If only it were a little smaller. Or a little larger. Or a little straighter. You spit out the toothpaste and inspect your face more closely, grimacing this way and that to smooth out the wrinkles that have developed since - when? It wasn't that long ago you were a taut-faced 18-year-old. However, this daily makeover need no longer be done in the solitude of your bathroom, and the results need no longer be locked in your imagination, as a result of a computer software program called the "Imager.

Temple University has agreed to pay the U.S. government $412,474 to settles claims stemming from two fraud schemes by a hospital department chairman and a trio of plastic surgeons that netted more than $4.5 million. Dr. Joseph J. Kubacki, former Chairman of Temple's Ophthalmology Department, was convicted in August on 73 counts of health care fraud, 73 counts of making false statements, and four counts of wire fraud. Kubacki, also a professor at the medical school and an attending physician at Temple University Hospital, billed federal agencies more than $1.5 million claiming he had performed services at the hospital performed by residents when he wasn't there.

IN THE REGION Temple settles with U.S. government Temple University agreed to pay the U.S. government $412,474 to settle claims stemming from two fraud schemes by a hospital department chairman and three plastic surgeons that netted more than $4.5 million. Joseph J. Kubacki, former chairman of Temple's Ophthalmology Department, was convicted in August on 73 counts of health-care fraud, 73 counts of making false statements, and four counts of wire fraud. Kubacki, also a professor at the medical school and an attending physician at Temple University Hospital, billed U.S. agencies more than $1.5 million, claiming that he had performed services at the hospital that were done by residents when he wasn't there.

A Center City physician, nearing 60, didn't like the slight tilt to the tip of his nose. A former Israeli combat soldier, now a nightclub manager in New York, felt his crooked nose eroded his confidence. A New Jersey teen, a star on the high school field hockey team, used to reach up, finger the bump on her bridge, and wonder if everyone was staring. And a Jamaican-born woman who loved her Caribbean features thought her nose was out of proportion to the rest of her face. Today, all four have new noses - symmetrical, straightened, smoothed-out, or cartilage-enhanced, reshaped at the tip or narrowed at the bridge.

Which cosmetic surgeries do women want most after childbirth? Which cosmetic procedure is the most popular with men between 30 and 60? How have face-lifts changed over the last 40 years? When Daniel C. Baker, one of the country's most renowned plastic surgeons, graduated from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1968, he never could have dreamed that 43 years later he would be cochairing, with plastic surgeons Sherrell J. Aston and Thomas D. Rees, a symposium that included sessions on vaginal rejuvenation and reshaping the buttocks Italian, Brazilian, French, or Swedish style.

David Sarwer, of Penn's Perelman School of Medicine, an authority on mental health issues in cosmetic surgery, offers a course at the annual convention of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons and has drawn up lists of three questions physicians should ask of patients requesting cosmetic surgery and three questions the patients should ask themselves. For the physician Can the plastic surgeon really see the defect?   Does the patient report impaired daily function based on his or her appearance?

Fat suctioning, America's favorite form of cosmetic surgery, is so safe and effective that the fight against flabby bodies has reached a level "unheard of in medicine," a leading Philadelphia cosmetic surgeon said today. The American Society of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeons said in a report released today that it had documented 11 deaths and nine non-fatal cases of serious complications in an analysis of 100,000 U.S. liposuction procedures over five years. The procedure involves inserting a tubular instrument under the skin and suctioning off fat tissue.

No body part is off-limits anymore as some in beauty-crazed America chase a new look: sculpted genitals and bold J.Lo butts. These novel, and increasingly popular, cosmetic procedures will undoubtedly be talked about when the 5,000-member American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) arrives in Philadelphia today for its annual meeting. But the bigger buzz at the Pennsylvania Convention Center likely will revolve around three fast-growing, less titillating developments: Botox for younger patients looking to prevent creases later on. New wrinkle-filling injections that last longer.

Temple University has agreed to pay the U.S. government $412,474 to settles claims stemming from two fraud schemes by a hospital department chairman and a trio of plastic surgeons that netted more than $4.5 million. Dr. Joseph J. Kubacki, former Chairman of Temple's Ophthalmology Department, was convicted in August on 73 counts of health care fraud, 73 counts of making false statements, and four counts of wire fraud. Kubacki, also a professor at the medical school and an attending physician at Temple University Hospital, billed federal agencies more than $1.5 million claiming he had performed services at the hospital performed by residents when he wasn't there.

IN THE REGION Temple settles with U.S. government Temple University agreed to pay the U.S. government $412,474 to settle claims stemming from two fraud schemes by a hospital department chairman and three plastic surgeons that netted more than $4.5 million. Joseph J. Kubacki, former chairman of Temple's Ophthalmology Department, was convicted in August on 73 counts of health-care fraud, 73 counts of making false statements, and four counts of wire fraud. Kubacki, also a professor at the medical school and an attending physician at Temple University Hospital, billed U.S. agencies more than $1.5 million, claiming that he had performed services at the hospital that were done by residents when he wasn't there.

A Center City physician, nearing 60, didn't like the slight tilt to the tip of his nose. A former Israeli combat soldier, now a nightclub manager in New York, felt his crooked nose eroded his confidence. A New Jersey teen, a star on the high school field hockey team, used to reach up, finger the bump on her bridge, and wonder if everyone was staring. And a Jamaican-born woman who loved her Caribbean features thought her nose was out of proportion to the rest of her face. Today, all four have new noses - symmetrical, straightened, smoothed-out, or cartilage-enhanced, reshaped at the tip or narrowed at the bridge.

David Sarwer, of Penn's Perelman School of Medicine, an authority on mental health issues in cosmetic surgery, offers a course at the annual convention of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons and has drawn up lists of three questions physicians should ask of patients requesting cosmetic surgery and three questions the patients should ask themselves. For the physician Can the plastic surgeon really see the defect?   Does the patient report impaired daily function based on his or her appearance?

'A psychiatrist with a scalpel" is the way Mark Solomon describes himself. Solomon, who has been performing cosmetic and other plastic surgery for 26 years, said judging patients' expectations is just as important as operating skill. "If I can't deliver, my answer is, 'I'm not doing it,' " said Solomon, whose practice is based in Bala Cynwyd. He estimated that he rejects up to 30 percent of prospective patients, most because their expectations are unrealistic. Jesse A. Taylor, a plastic surgeon with Penn Medicine, said he turns down an even higher estimated number, up to 40 percent.

Which cosmetic surgeries do women want most after childbirth? Which cosmetic procedure is the most popular with men between 30 and 60? How have face-lifts changed over the last 40 years? When Daniel C. Baker, one of the country's most renowned plastic surgeons, graduated from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1968, he never could have dreamed that 43 years later he would be cochairing, with plastic surgeons Sherrell J. Aston and Thomas D. Rees, a symposium that included sessions on vaginal rejuvenation and reshaping the buttocks Italian, Brazilian, French, or Swedish style.

John Harlan Moore Jr., 58, of Radnor, a plastic surgeon and educator at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, died of lung cancer on Monday, Sept. 26. Early in his career at Jefferson, Dr. Moore traveled with Operation Smile to developing countries, including the Philippines, Vietnam, Mexico, Nicaragua, as well as to Africa to treat cleft lip and palate deformities. After a trip to Liberia in 1988, he told the Philadelphia Daily News, "There's tremendous satisfaction knowing you made an impact on one family by a simple operation.

Richard Glunk, the plastic surgeon who recently lost his appeal of a $20 million medical-malpractice verdict that involved the death of a Delaware County teenager, is still offering free consultations for liposuction and other procedures. But Glunk's ability to nip or tuck might be curbed for a couple of months because of allegations that he tried to bribe a Hasidic rabbi who is on the state Board of Medicine. In a ruling released last week, Glunk was ordered to pay a $5,000 civil penalty, relinquish his license for at least 60 days and take classes in ethics, professionalism or related topics.

USED TO BE, a woman who wanted to spice up her love life would buy a sex toy, learn a new lovemaking technique or invite more than one partner into her bed. But in this age of extremes, some women are taking a more radical route to please their paramour: They're having their vaginas sliced and diced. "Vaginal rejuvenation" surgeries give women a chance to tighten private parts pulverized by childbirth, or to just correct those that Mother Nature made assymetrical or imperfect, supporters of the surgeries say. "Because of the recession, most cosmetic surgeons are doing far less [business]

A plastic surgeon who was ordered last year to pay $20.5 million to the family of a young Delaware County woman who died after liposuction is now accused of trying to bribe a member of the State Board of Medicine. If the board rules against Richard Glunk, he could lose his license to practice medicine, according to the complaint filed against him by the state Bureau of Professional and Occupational Affairs. The complaint is dated Sept. 11. Glunk is accused of trying to bribe Rabbi Solomon Isaacson, a member of the medical board and a political insider, while he had a case before the board.