After all this time, we remain caught up in the same questions of legitimacy that plagued aesthetic medicine in its infancy: When is it right to intervene? The surface of the body doesn’t just protect us from the world; it’s the intermediary through which we experience it, and through which the world experiences us. Some people are born beautiful and welcomed with open arms; some are less fortunate, and are received with less forgiveness. If a doctor could turn someone from the latter category into the former—if the patient herself knocks on the cosmetic surgeon’s door to request as much—who
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