“Redefining Your Silhouette” is the innocuous-sounding way one hospital in Bangkok, Thailand, advertised taking a scalpel to women’s bodies. What they’re talking about is “rib remodeling,” an invasive medical procedure promising to give women of all ages an “hourglass figure,” while boosting the profits of the cosmetic surgery industry barons.
Their ads aim to convince women these surgeries are absolutely necessary to feel good about themselves and be successful in jobs and relationships.
Doctors in the U.S. who perform rib remodeling tout it as “medical progress” over liposuction or just plain rib removal. This “advance” requires the doctor to break your ribs. You then wear a compression corset for three months to “reset” them to permanently reduce your waist.
If that doesn’t sound too painful, the $10,000 to $15,000 cost of the procedure will.
“The goal is to restore your confidence in your appearance,” Dr. Josef Hadeed insists on his website. He specializes in the procedure in Beverly Hills, California. Far from building women’s self-confidence, these profit-hungry sawbones play on women’s insecurities.
The operation can also help “male-to-female transgender patients who want a more classically feminine body shape,” Hadeed says. Not to miss a trick, he also offers multiple other “body contouring procedures” to “complement” rib remodeling, to be profiled during your first consultation.
The range and number of cosmetic surgeries have proliferated in recent years and so have the number of lawsuits by patients whose new bodies feel mutilated. Of course, this too can provide a windfall for progressive professionals, this time for the lawyers.