Worldwide, recipients of plastic surgery procedures have sent their post-surgical reactions (and thanks) to Stuart Linder, M.D. (who blogs as Dr. Body) and to

Jointly, Drs. Face and Body have 60 years of experience performing cosmetic plastic surgery patients on 10,000 patients, many of whom have traveled to Beverly Hills from foreign lands.

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Dr. Face (Dr. Kotler): I received an interesting letter from a potential Italian patient. The man is very good at crunching numbers about the cost of plastic surgery.

Dr. Body (Dr. Linder): What did he have to say?

Dr. Face:  He has in mind coming here for a rhinoplasty and tells me it costs less for him to fly to Beverly Hills, have surgery, recover for ten days and then fly back home rather than have a similar surgery in Switzerland…..which is two hours from his home.

Dr. Body: And so the relatively weak dollar has spoken!

Dr. Face: What has your patient mail revealed lately, doctor?

Dr. Body: Well, I hear from former patients frequently although none are as good with an adding machine as your Italian correspondent.

Dr. Face:  Such as?

Dr. Body: Listen to this one: D.A., a Canadian woman from Alberta, sent a note saying how she was hesitant at first to cross the border after she had a botched breast augmentation near her home. But she came to Beverly Hills for a revision breast enhancement anyhow. After she healed, she wrote, and I quote: “I’m so glad I made the trip! I’ve got the hottest tatas ever!”

Dr. Face: I received a similar letter from a former rhinoplasty patient, Salome S. who flew here from Ethiopia. After going back home, she sent a note saying, “The hands of god must have guided you, as I feel so blessed!” I’m glad she was so pleased with nose surgery but, really, we don’t anoint people, we just do cosmetic plastic surgery!

Dr. Body: A flight from Ethiopia had to involve several stops at least. I received an extremely praiseworthy note from S.N., a woman from Singapore who came for a Beverly Hills breast lift and tummy tuck. She wrote: “I would make the 20-hour flight again to repair what having three children had taken away…”

Dr. Face:  20 hours in a plane! She should be anointed!

Dr. Body: L.K., another breast revision patient had breast enlargement in Hungary, her home country, but she did not like the results because one breast was higher than the other. After revision surgery in Beverly Hills, she sent back a note saying “her girls” are now bigger and they look the same.

Dr. Face: I saw another Italian patient for rhinoplasty who has no gripes at all about airplanes, probably because she is an attendant on international flights.  She writes that she thinks of us every time she looks at her nose in the mirror. Plus, when she tells friends about her nose job, they always tell her how natural her results looks.

Dr. Body: Here’s another good letter: A.M. from Puerto Rico had one of the most unusual complications known in breast surgery. She had three previous breast augmentations in her home country when the implants rolled together to form what is sometimes known as a “uniboob.” Medically, the condition is known as symmastia or a double bubble breast deformity. Look at her before and after breast surgery revision pictures and you can see how rare the condition is. I might also add – with all modesty – it is equally rare to find a breast revision surgeon with symmastia repair experience.

Dr. Face:  We also have some international patients from Indonesia, Kuwait and a few other nations who have second homes in Los Angeles or Beverly Hills. They frequently have cosmetic surgery for themselves, their teens and other family members while visiting. Some live here half of each year.

Dr. Body: What types of services does your office provide for international patients?

Dr. Face: Because California law and good medical ethnics require doing surgery only on healthy patients, we must have a physical exam completed before surgery. But it can be done from the patient’s home nation. International patients always enjoy looking at before and after facial plastic surgery pictures, too.

Dr. Body: Same for us, our patients must have a physical exam, too. Do you also do “virtual exams” so that you give patients a brief look through email, Skype or over the phone?

Dr. Face:  Indeed we do, doctor! And that will be the topic – Virtual Exams – of our next blog post.

Read how cosmetic plastic surgery appointments work for Dr. Kotler’s Out-of-Town Patients.

Learn how international patients can make arrangements for plastic surgery with Dr. Linder.

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Having served the cosmetic surgical needs of many hundreds of  top celebrities – often in total secret – both Beverly Hills board-certified plastic surgeon Stuart Linder, M.D. (who blogs as “Dr. Body”) and  Beverly Hills board-certified cosmetic facial surgeon Robert Kotler, M.D. (“Dr. Face”) tell why so many famous people have gone so terribly wrong with cosmetic plastic surgery when the very best is so close at hand.

Entire websites are devoted to Hollywood celebrities and film stars who come away with less-than-perfect plastic surgery. Yet, Hollywood and Beverly Hills—the world capital for plastic surgery — sit next to each other in Southern California. What’s more,  virtually all celebrities can afford the best of anything, rejuvenation surgery included. So what goes wrong?

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Dr. Face: (Dr. Kotler) The list of film stars and other celebrities with bad plastic surgery seems to grow each year. Recently, we’ve seen Priscilla Presley, Kenny Rogers, Meg Ryan, Bruce Jenner and others sporting features that are unnatural, artificial-looking and not at all complimentary to their cosmetic plastic surgeons.

Dr. Body. (Dr. Linder) Unfortunately, true. I know in plastic surgery of the body, the dead giveaway to either quick or untrained plastic surgery is when a breast augmentation patient turns up with breasts that look like two grape fruit halves or bowls stuck to her chest – along with a wide space between the breasts that in no way can be called “cleavage.”

Dr. Face: Cosmetic plastic surgeons of both the body and the face want a surgical rejuvenation to look natural. After healing, the person should look rested and refreshed – not someone who draws attention to him-or-herself due to huge fattened lips, surprised looking eye lifts, facial skin as tight as an overinflated balloon or the breasts you mention.

Dr. Body: Sure, the key to good cosmetic plastic surgery is that the patient looks very, very good but still, other people can’t quite put their fingers on what the change is. People usually guess at a new workout program, a vacation, losing weight or a new romance.

Dr. Face: Yet when he was alive, Michael Jackson turned up at the offices of many Beverly Hills plastic surgeons asking for yet more rhinoplasty, long after his nose was already overdone. I’ve known of many famous people who turn on all the charm to pressure a younger surgeon into yet another surgery – one which will do the celebrity no good or one the person should not have for reasons of health.

Dr. Body: So there are many times when the dedicated but thoughtful surgeon must say no. In my practice, I routinely say “no” to anybody with diabetes, celebrities included. Most cosmetic plastic surgeries of the body involve long scars which stand a good chance of separating before healing if the person has diabetes.  Or a terrible infection may set in.

Dr. Face: I’ve also noticed that many celebrities are very given to embracing the latest fad procedure or practitioner. Priscilla Presley (the first wife of singer Elvis Presley) was shown on the television program, Dancing With The Stars about a year ago; viewers could easily see her immense, out-of-proportion lip augmentation. A bogus doctor had gained his way into celebrity, A-list circles and was essentially injecting them with low grade industrial silicone – at a premium price. The “physician” in that case turned out not to be a doctor at all, was later convicted on several charges and deported.

The largest red warning flag of all?

The so-called  “doctor” was operating from his home! Legitimate cosmetic plastic surgeons work from well-staffed, well-equipped offices.

Dr. Body: Actually, many, many Hollywood celebrities have plastic surgery and have it in secret. In a later blog post, we’ll tell you how they do it. But, understandably, celebrities appearances often depend on whether they work or not. So they should be the ones to do the most homework and find the most skilled plastic surgeons possible.

We’ll also tell you how to do that in a post later  on!