Not Just for the Vain and ‘Petty’

From augmenting nose bridges, breasts and butts to reducing excess flab, cosmetic surgeons have a way to make one look the way s/he desires. Cosmetic surgery has become a lucrative profession, attracting many doctors to specialize in this field. But far from the desire for the “ideal” face and a head-turning body, there are children who just wish to look “normal.” They are those who, since birth, have been suffering from ridicule because of their physical defects. Rather than go with the tide of her high earning colleagues, this doctor uses her training in cosmetic surgery for children like them.

BY AUBREY SC MAKILAN
Bulatlat

Dr. Pilita Mijares Gurango with hare-lipped patients

The names of Vicki Belo and Manny Calayan are often mentioned by movie stars and socialites who flaunt their “new look.”     From augmenting nose bridges, breasts and butts to reducing excess flab, cosmetic surgeons have a way to make one look the way s/he desires. Cosmetic surgery has become a lucrative profession, attracting many doctors to specialize in this field.   But far from the desire for the “ideal” face and a head-turning body, there are children who just wish to look “normal.” They are those who, since birth, have been suffering from ridicule because of their physical defects.

Reconstructing smiles

Cherese Hernandez was born with cleft lip and palate. Through an operation performed by Dr. Pilita Mijares Gurango, her defects were fixed when she was still a baby.

She is now 12 years old and is again consulting Gurango for possible alveolar bone grafting. Bone defects are normal to patients like her as changes occur as they get older.

A plastic and reconstructive surgeon at the Philippine Children’s Medical Center (PCMC), Gurango pursued further specialization in craniofacial surgery in Taiwan in the late 1990s.

In reconstructive surgery, she handles congenital cases such as cleft palate, cleft lip and hyposthenia. For craniofacial surgery, a team, composed of a neuro-surgeon who operates on the skull and a plastic surgeon for the face, work together on a patient.

In her five years at the Philippine General Hospital (PGH), she had frequent interactions with the poorest of the poor. Almost all they were serving then were charity patients.

To continue her work with indigent patients, Gurango and her husband created the Mijares Gurango Craniofacial Foundation. With the help of the New York-based Smile Train, more than 175 children have received free cleft care since the foundation became its partner in 2002. The Smile Train allots about $200 as assistance per patient.

Her mom and friends would even invite strangers with cleft defects to visit her clinic at the PCMC. So whenever she does a free operation on her relatives or friends, she introduces the foundation to them in the hope that they would be motivated to give donations for her indigent patients.

Gurango also participates in the annual medical mission led by the PGH to provide free cleft operations to poor patients nationwide. During these medical missions, surgeons like Gurango had to make do with what is available. They usually don’t have a pulse oximeter that monitors the patient’s oxygenation. They make do with an improvised operating table.  And they do not have the facilities of an operating room to control bleeding if it happens to a patient.   But Gurango gives her best to give a new smile to as many cleft patients waiting in line in the mission.

Cosmetic surgery

Even before dedicating herself to children with cleft problems, Gurango once became busy with patrons of cosmetic surgery. While having her residency at the PGH in the ‘80s, she used to perform nose lift operations to her clients who were mostly women entertainers in Japan.

It was her mom, who used to own a beauty parlor, who encouraged her to specialize in cosmetic surgery for a more financially-rewarding job especially since during the past decades, there were only a few cosmetic surgeons.

But it was her love for children that led her to reconstructive surgery. “Very lucrative naman talaga ang cosmetic surgery” (Cosmetic surgery is really very lucrative), she said. “(But) I find it (craniofacial surgery) more fulfilling,” said the 48-year-old cheerful doctor. She used to do an operation almost everyday. But she stopped doing cosmetic surgery after having her first baby in 1992. Although financially rewarding, “cosmetic surgery is very demanding,” she said, referring to patients who would call her even in the wee hours of the night for slight pains.

LIP SURGEON AT WORK: Dr. Pilita Mijares-Gurango in the operating room with a patient, before starting an operation

Moreover, “wala naman silang sakit pero gusto lang nilang magpaganda” (They’re not sick, they just want to look beautiful.), she said. “Wala sa kanila ‘yung gustong gumaling. ‘Yung motivation nila eh ‘yung lumabas ‘yung gusto nilang itsura na para sa akin ay petty” (None of them want to be cured. Their motivation is to look the way they want to, which for me is petty.)

“Every year naman may napo-produce na cosmetic surgeon” (Anyway there are cosmetic surgeons being produced every year), she added.

As a craniofacial surgeon, her job does not stop with bridging the gap in the lip. As the patient grows older, he or she will encounter bone defects that will need an operation again just like Hernandez.

Medical tourism

Now medical tourism is being promoted y the government, while hospitals even government-owned ones are being encouraged to actively participate in this program for income generation purposes.

But even surgeons who would do the procedures are yet to be united.

Gurango said the issue of government-endorsed cosmetic surgeons arises as one point of contention among them. Some of these plastic surgeons, like Dr. Vicky Belo, a cosmetic surgeon who became famous because of clients from the showbiz industry, are neither members of the Philippine Association of Plastic Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgeons nor the Philippine Society for Cosmetic Surgery, she said.

At the PCMC, Gurango said they are being surveyed to see if they would accept medical tourism patients.

“Kung may magre-refer na kaibigan, hindi ko naman sila tatanggihan” (If friends refer them to me, I won’t refuse them), she said.

She said her priority is still her children patients.

“I would always treat my Filipino patients as special,” she said, posing a smile on her face even after a strenuous day with her patients at the PCMC. Bulatlat

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