Over the years of upheavals in Iraq, plastic surgeons have gained huge experience and skills in reconstructive and cosmetic surgery to help rehabilitate many thousands of people wounded by bombs or bullets.
But now that general levels of violence have dropped sharply, they are facing a huge upsurge in demand for more conventional forms of cosmetic surgery.
Every day, the clinic of Dr Abbas al-Sihn in the relatively prosperous suburb of Mansour is besieged by scores of patients eagerly waiting their turn to apply for elective aesthetic procedures which they hope will improve their looks and perhaps their lives.
Sihn says that demand has risen by about 50% over the past year alone. By far the most popular operation is rhinoplasty. He has performed around 1,400 such operations in recent years. "I’m currently doing about 50 operations a week, but that number will go up sharply in the summer, when students are on holiday," he says.
His clinic is crowded with men and women, old and young, and even children. Operations are done on war injuries, but cosmetic surgery is on the rise.
More.
[Source: BBC News]
