‘Plastic heart surgery’ sweeps America

Science News: “It was so embarrassing,” says Cindy Shepherd, a 42 year-old systems analyst from California. “I was having X-rays for a chest complaint and I just couldn’t bear the sight of my own heart. It was so mushy and squishy and so…un-heart-shaped! I mean my X-rays were so ugly. That’s when I decided to have the surgery.”

Cindy Shepherd is one of a growing number of Americans who have paid a small fortune to have their hearts re-modelled, giving them a more traditional ‘cupid’ look.

The controversial surgical procedure actually cuts the heart into the required shape with what critics have described as a ‘glorified biscuit tin’. What comes off round the edges is redistributed on top, leaving the aorta and crucial ventricles almost completely undamaged.

“At first it was just Hollywood stars and rather bored, extremely wealthy people,” says Dr. Alvarez, head of the Hello Kitty Plastic Surgery Clinic in Pasadena, “but now we get a lot of very normal people. And children. Lots of children. They grow up thinking that’s what a heart actually looks like and their parents can’t bear to disappoint them.”