Plastic Surgeon Writes Law on Breasts
Breast Reconstruction, Special Occasions Comments Off
Plastic surgeons often volunteer to foundations and international organizations that provide gratis plastic surgery for the needy and performing other humanitarian acts.
Many big-hearted plastic surgeons give freely of their time and remarkable surgical skills to many such organizations, including:
- Interplast – gratis reconstructive plastic surgery for the poor in developing nations
- SMILE – cleft lip and palate reconstruction for poor children
- Face to Face – cosmetic surgery on the battered faces of American women who have left abusive relationships.
But now we have a new one – a well-known New York City plastic surgeon wrote a law about breast surgery after mastectomy and saw it enacted in the Empire State.
It started when plastic and reconstructive surgeon Evan Garfein, M.D. came across a 39-year-old single mother and patient who asked for a breast reconstruction two years after she lost both breasts to cancer.
Dr. Garfein asked why she didn’t have reconstructive breast surgery at the time of her mastectomy. The patient, a poor woman, replied she did not know that U.S. laws required every insurer to provide for breast reconstruction after cancer. The patient only found out about the law while talking with a secretary during another medical appointment.
The wheels in Dr. Garfein head starting turning but really spun into action when a colleague – who also had breast cancer – did a study showing that many minority and poor women never get the word that they are entitled to breast reconstruction after losing breasts to cancer.
Statistics show that about 250,000 women lose a breast or breasts to cancer yearly, but only about 30 to 40 percent have breast reconstruction.
One sure way to make sure all women knew of their options – at least in New York State — would be requiring consulting physicians to tell patients what options are available after mastectomy.
Thus motivated, Dr. Garfein authored the law and then teamed up with two local state representatives to push it through the state legislature. (Read more about the plastic surgeon.)
Dr. Garfein told the CSI BLOG: “ If all women knew their options, about 75 percent of women would have breast reconstruction after cancer.
“Our next big push might be enacting the same law on the national level,” the doctor says. “It’s the right thing to do and writing a new law is not really hard.”
admin @ August 24, 2010
