American dreaming

Cosmetic surgeons loved to be invited to Californian babe parties. It was where they did most of their recruitment. TV doctor and full-time writer Dr Michael O’Donnell draws from his new book, Medicine’s Strangest Cases.

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA, US, 1977

Some 40 years ago, many of the strangest cases in American medicine – strange to European eyes, that is – regularly put themselves on display at cocktail parties in southern California.

During the 1970s, plastic surgeons took over from psychiatrists as purveyors of the American Dream, as many Americans decided that what was holding them back were not inhibitions but baggy eyelids, baldness or sagging boobs.