Doctors get draft rules on fat removal
Removing fat from bodies isn't going to be so easy - for doctors. They should have spent at least a year in surgery, and should have acquired some training in the procedure. -ST
Salma Khalik
Mon, Apr 28, 2008
The Straits Times
REMOVING fat from bodies isn't going to be so easy - for doctors.
They should have spent at least a year in surgery, and should have acquired some training in the procedure.
Only then will they get a licence to perform liposuction, a complicated procedure which has resulted in deaths, even in Europe where it has been practised for a long time.
The Health Ministry yesterday released draft regulations on liposuction, the first aesthetic procedure to come under its microscope.
One unusual requirement which underlined the purely cosmetic aspect of the procedure: Doctors have to give prospective patients a 15-day cooling off period.
The only other medical procedure requiring a cooling off period here is abortion.
Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan yesterday noted that France has a similar cooling off period.
'We think this period is useful. Otherwise, some operators might hard sell and force the customer to go and lie down and do it immediately,' he added.
He was fielding questions on the risks of cosmetic treatments at a dialogue with residents at Geylang Serai Community Centre yesterday.
The issue flared up over a month ago, when the media spotlight was turned on general practitioners (GPs) who do cosmetic surgery and other aesthetic procedures.
Mr Khaw made it clear that there were risks involved in going to doctors untrained in this procedure. In Malaysia, a 40-year-old is in a coma following a tummy tuck - by an orthopaedic surgeon.
He has heard stories too, of botched operations here which required repair jobs.
To minimise this, the ministry wants operations to remove more than 1 litre of fat to be done in a hospital or surgery centre. Any amount less than 1 litre can be removed in approved premises.
Plastic surgeons contacted say that it is more common to remove between 3 and 7 litres of fat. But GPs said they generally deal with smaller areas, like the upper arms, where only half a litre is removed.
The new rules mean that all the big cases will go to surgeons. But they are still none too pleased with the proposals, which were circulated to doctors last week.
The Singapore Association of Plastic Surgeons lashed out at the 'piecemeal' approach to regulation which mocked the 'comprehensive way bona fide plastic surgeons are trained'.
But the Society of Aesthetic Medicine, which represents about 150 doctors who are neither plastic surgeons nor dermatologists, described the rules as a 'win-win outcome for all stakeholders'.
No figures are available on the number of liposuction procedures performed here, but doctors say it runs into the thousands every year.
But this will change when the rules kick in, in a few months' time. Doctors will have to keep track of their liposuction treatments, which will be subject to audits from the ministry.
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