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DOI: 10.5999/aps.2015.42.1.84
Book Review: Bending Reality: Adventures in Global Plastic Surgery
Author: Richard C Schultz
Print length: 243 pages (87 illustrations)
Publisher: Bookstand Publishing
Publication date: December 12, 2013
ISBN-10: 1618635549
Dr. Schultz, former head of Plastic Surgery, and now Emeritus Professor at The University of Illinois (CA), has written a memoir of his 37 years of a rather colorful career advancing modern concepts in reconstructive plastic surgery, (i.e., new concepts in post traumatic facial reconstruction, cleft palate repair, etc.) around the world. These activities often put him in disadvantaged African, Asian and East European Communist countries, sometimes culminating in life threatening events. While serving as a Fulbright scholar with Prof. Tord Skoog in Uppsala, Sweden in 1960, he was recruited by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to observe communist connections in this socialist country. This led to a visit with the Surgeon General of The Soviet Army who was advocating a secret but ineffective method of treating 3rd degree thermal burns in soldiers, attempting to hasten their return to duty.
Schultz describes two potentially dangerous encounters with the Chicago underworld involving plastic surgery, along with a night spent in jail over conflicting ethical responsibilities.
His four books, numerous journal publications, and leadership positions in multiple professional societies served to attract foreign plastic surgeons to visit him in Chicago. Among these were Ivo Pitanguy (Brazil), Paul Tessier and Yves Gerard Illouz (France), Bong Soo Baik (South Korea), Namik Baron (Turkey), as well as numerous German and Japanese maxillofacial surgeons, many of whom stayed in his home and, on occasion, were taken to his summer home in Michigan.
Illustrations of a variety of surgical procedures performed by the author, including his approach and involvement in separation of craniopagus twins, significantly enhance the text.
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Conflict of Interest
No potential conflict of interest relevant to this article was reported.
Correspondence
Publication History
Received: 14 August 2014
Accepted: 19 August 2014
Article published online:
02 June 2022
© 2015. The Korean Society of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeons. This is an open access article published by Thieme under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License, permitting unrestricted noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction so long as the original work is given appropriate credit. Contents may not be used for commercial purposes. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/)
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