OPERATION CELEBRITY: Part 2

Starstruck physicians and their staffs sometimes overlook routine procedures when someone well-known arrives at the office. "There have been times when I had to chastise a colleague or employee for asking for an autograph," Polis says. And while she is supposed to do a full-body cancer check as part of every initial consultation, Polis admits that when she first started her practice, she was too intimidated to demand them from celebrities. "Can you imagine a new, young dermatologist asking a major box-office star to disrobe for a skin exam when he just came in to get a pimple injected?" she asks.

Barron Lerner, a physician and medical historian at Columbia University, calls this condition the "VIP syndrome." Lerner has studied famous patients for his forthcoming book, When Illness Goes Public (Johns Hopkins Press), and says "Celebrity patients may get worse care because they intimidate their physicians. Doctors, enamored of their patients and distracted by their fame, may not be willing to speak up when they disagree with their patients'
requests or demands."

When bad plastic surgery happens to celebrities; their respective spin machines go into high gear. Sophia Loren was rumored to have had a heart attack after getting liposuction, but she denied it, saying she had just accompanied a friend to the doctor. After a big television star was allegedly burned by an ultrasonic liposuction cannula, her publicist filled the gossip columns with news about a traffic accident. One of the longest-running stories involves Star Jones Reynolds and her near-fatal complications following a breast lift. After losing 150 pounds from unconfirmed gastric-bypass surgery, the talk-show host had allegedly been turned down for the breast procedure by one surgeon because she had a low blood count. Jones found a doctor willing to perform the surgery, but after the procedure, she began to bleed uncontrollably. A transcript of the 911 emergency tape obtained by the New York Daily News quotes someone from the clinic saying, "We have a patient who is on our surgery table who we cannot stop from bleeding." And although initially Jones tried to deny the incident, she confirmed it on The View a few days later, saying "I did not almost die...[the doctors] knew I was anemic and, just in case I ended up needing some blood, which I did, they were prepared. They gave me the blood, and literally I was fine right afterward."

Even when the surgery itself is a success, the recovery can go awry when the patient disregards doctor's orders-and celebrities seem to be especially guilty of this. "They will squeeze major liposuction into insufficient recovery time," Hoefflin says. "You can't do a movie a week later and keep within the safety box." They've also been known to ignore orders to quit smoking or drinking, which can compromise healing.

And some stars simply cry to bulldoze over their physicians' advice. Patrick
Sullivan, a plastic surgeon in Providence, operated on a 42-year-old Broadway
actress who wanted to bring her own staff to care for her after her procedures--accept that they were fellow actresses with no nursing experience (she trusted only her friends to keep her confidence). Sullivan balked end insisted that she have a registered nurse visit her daily during her recovery.

Despite confidentiality agreements signed by hospital personnel, photographers and reporters often seem to find out when a celebrity is leaving a surgical facility. Plastic surgeon John Grossman recalls one dramatic departure from his Denver clinic when a singer had to put on green scrubs and walk out flanked by nurses all dressed identically, just so she could slip past the paparazzi waiting outside. Soon after her marriage to Michael Jackson, Lisa Marie Prealey had some body surgery performed by Edward Terino, a doctor with a practice in Thousand Oaks, California. But with photographers hiding behind every bush, Presley fled with a blanket over her head. {Terino is popular with fellow Scientologists because he practices "silent surgery"-no conversation or music is allowed in the operating room on the principle that it might be heard by the anesthetized patient subconsciously and affect her later.)

After all the complicated arrangements to keep everything quiet, famous patients often slip up and give away their own identity. Gerald Pitman, who practices in Manhattan, remembers a world-renowned pop star who called the doctor at home after having surgery. When Pitman's young son answered and asked who was calling, the patient gave his real name, and the child's jaw dropped. Pitman had to lecture his son on the importance of honoring patient privacy. "I'd as soon give a name of a patient as jump off a bridge," Pitman says. Another of Pitman's famous patients checked into the hospital under a pseudonym and promptly forgot to use it. Later, one of Pitman's colleagues let him know that "the lady who pushes the gurney tells me you're operating on so-and-so."

Because of their patients' need for secrecy, surgeons can rarely get praise for their work on famous faces and sometimes another doctor will take the credit, because the real doctor can't protest without revealing confidence". According to one surgeon, the only benefit to operating on a star besides the financial one-if the star actually pays-is "the occasional free ticket to a concert." The downside is that celebrities can take advantage of their doctors, asking them to rush to Malibu in the middle of the night to stitch up their child's cut knee. (One surgeon was allegedly called out of drug rehab to give Botox to a star halfway around the world on a concert tour.)

The very rich and titled can be even more difficult. Grossman has several patients who are Middle Eastern royalty. "Once, on vacation in Santa Fe, I got a call that 'Her Highness needs to see you tomorrow,'" Grossman remembers. "I flew to Beverly Hills and sat for several hours in a garage with her security people. Finally, I said, `I don't have any more time' and left. Afterward, there were great apologies and gifts.

"For some doctors, its easier to discuss celebrity plastic surgery than to actually perform it--and just as beneficial. One publicist advises his surgeon clients to send out press releases speculating about whether Tom Cruise got Botox or Ashlee Simpson had a recent nose job. The fact that these doctors have never met the celebrity in question is immaterial, says the publicist: "The public thinks they did. It's less headache, and the doctors themselves bccome celebrities." Two different plastic surgeons even have websites devoted entirely to gossip about stars they have never touched. However, this can backfire, as it did with Sharon Stone and Renato Calabria, a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon. When articles in Us Weekly and In Touch about Calabria's
alleged work on Stone later appeared on Calabria's website, Stone took legal action. Though he wasn't quoted as the source of the information, Stone sued Calabria for defamation. Stone later dropped the suit, and Calabria agreed to perform surgery on disadvantaged children. Naomi Campbell is suing Jean-Louis Sebagh, a French dermatologist, in a London court for £50,000 for ads in Hello! magazine that implied that she endorsed his products. In her snit against the doctor, Campbell denied needing or having any cosmetic procedures, and has used the popular expression, by way of explanation,
'Black don't crack.' (At press time, the suit was still pending.)

With all of these problems, many doctors wondcr if celebrities are worth the trouble. While being chosen by a star is flattering, Baker says, "You'll get more referrals working on a housewife who'll tell her friends." Therefore, he says, if a superstar wants surgery, he puts a financial premium on it. "They rake a lot of extra time," Baker explains, "They expect it, and they demand it." So when a celebrity tells reporters that her youthful figure is a product of exercise and healthy living,
and not her liposuction, doctors tend to understand the subterfuge. "When you are a patient on a TV talk show ascribing her good looks to clean living and genetics," says Craig Foster, a Manhattan-based plastic surgeon, "it gives you a small degree of satisfaction knowing you gave God and Mother Nature a little boost."