{"id":729,"date":"2021-10-01T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-10-01T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/levedura.blog\/?p=729"},"modified":"2022-09-05T19:00:12","modified_gmt":"2022-09-05T22:00:12","slug":"donda-e-a-lei-dos-mortos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/levedura.blog\/en\/donda-e-a-lei-dos-mortos\/","title":{"rendered":"Donda and the Law of the Dead"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Donda, Donda, Donda - Kanye West\u2019s homonymous new album was\nreleased just a few weeks ago and it begins with a very haunting and beautiful chant\nof Donda West\u2019s name. It is no secret the rapper has struggled over the years with\nmental health issues, so, for many fans, it was great seeing the musician back to\nspotlight for something other than tabloid-worthy news. The album itself is named\nafter the rapper\u2019s late mother and manager, a college professor who seems to have\nunderstood that the school is not, and should not be, the only place for learning. Even\nas an educator\u2014or perhaps, exactly because she was one\u2014Donda supported her\nson\u2019s artistic endeavours from a young age. But among the celebration of his mother\nand her teachings, the songs in Donda<\/em> are also laments on her absence. Donda West\ndied back in 2007 after complications from a plastic surgery.<\/p>

As you know by now, this volume of Levedura<\/em> is about plastic surgery. This\nis never an easy topic to approach, but I was certain that our invited authors would\ncome up with layered views for such an uneven theme. And they have. From\ninterventions aimed at reaching impossible beauty standards, to reconstructive\nsurgery in newborns, we have learned in this edition that plastic surgeries are\nfrequently performed in diametrical contexts. But one thing that seems to be common\non both ends is that plastic surgery is hardly ever seen as \u201creal surgery.\u201d<\/p>

Plastic surgery, like most things in the world, is not a new concept, idea, or\nprocedure. There are r ecords on reconstructive surgery being performed in India and\nEgypt in 800 BC and earlier. Pieces of skin being removed and reimplanted, noses\nbeing rebuilt, fractured lips being stitched closed. Indeed, the word \u201cplastic\u201d seems to\ncome from the Greek word plastike<\/em>which refers to the art of sculpting and modeling.\nI tend to believe that similar procedures must have been just as common in other\nparts of the world at the time. After all, modifying our bodies either permanently or\nmomentarily is one of very few transcultural human traits that we have identified so far.<\/p>

Back in downtown Porto Alegre, I walked by the\nsame two or three streets every single day for about 8\nyears. And one of the many things that I saw every day\nduring that time were clinics trying to sell cosmetic\nsurgeries such as breast implants, fat removal, and\nvaginal renewal procedures. To be honest, this description\nprobably fits any other Brazilian big city. These cosmetic\nclinics are just\u2026there. Amongst drug stores, groceries\nstores, bars, restaurants, hair salons, Nike products\u2014both\noriginal and fake.<\/p>

But now, as I stop and think about it, I find it weird\nto think about how common place these clinics have\nbecome. Well, I guess that it\u2019s not as if they were\nperforming open-heart surgeries\u2026 Right? It\u2019s not real surgery<\/em>\u2026 despite the very real blades, very real anesthesia,\nand very real blood involved. Not to mention the very real,\nirreversible deaths that happen every year as a result of\nsurgical malpractice and negligence.<\/p>

In Brazil, and as far as I know, in all the United\nStates, there are no clear rules about which pre-op exams\na doctor has to mandate before performing a surgical\ncosmetic procedure. Guidelines do exist, but they are not\nmandatory. Surgeons are free to choose what aspects of\nyour health, and how far back in your health history they\nwant to dig before giving you a green light to undergo a\ncosmetic surgery. In the case of Donda West, and in the\ncase of many other people, an extensive and detailed\nhealth screening would probably have deemed them\nunfit for plastic surgery due to pre-existing health issues.\nPerhaps, finding out about an unknown disease in pre-op\ncould potentially even have extended their lives. It could\nhave been the opportunity for them to treat an unknown\nheart condition, or a blood clotting condition before it was\ntoo late.<\/p>

But this is not how the story went. In California, the death of Donda West did spark a\nsocial debate about pre-screening before cosmetic surgeries, but the Donda West Law,\napproved in 2010 is more of a poor consolation and a homage than an actual regulation on\nsurgical practices. Even though the regulation \u201cprohibits doctors from performing elective\ncosmetic surgery without a physical examination and clearance from a medical professional,\u201d it\nalso says that \u201cviolating the provision does not constitute a crime.\u201d In effect, a violator would be\njudged by a medical board, but they would not face criminal charges.<\/p>

So, this is not meant to be a wake-up-call kind of article. This is a personal reflection on\nhow plastic surgeries are one of many areas in science and medicine where we need to invest in\nhealth literacy and better, more explicit regulation. This is not a plea for women to reconsider\nundergoing aesthetic procedures. This a plea for policy makers, researchers, doctors, surgeons to\nmake sure that information is communicated honestly and clearly to patients. Plastic surgeons\nmust be held accountable for not screenings their patients \u2013 or for screening them and choosing\nto ignore the results. They know better than anyone, after all, that plastic surgeries are very real\nand consequential surgical interventions.<\/p>

No medical procedure can ever be completely risk-free, of course\u2014it would be foolish\nto think otherwise. But the fact remains that we can do much better when it comes to teaching\npeople what their rights are, what risks they might face, and how to choose qualified clinics and\ndoctors. After all, the hard truth is that every law named after someone is a law named after a\nvictim of a tragedy, and no one man should have the power to decide how much caution is too\nmuch when it comes to someone\u2019s health. But collectively, n\u00f3s<\/em> we do have the power to reduce these\ntragedies, and to praise amazing people through songs, not through laws.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Credits<\/h4>\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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\u201c<\/b>Kanye West’s 808s & Heartbreak @ The Hollywood Bowl – Night 1 (09\/25\/15)<\/span><\/a>\u201d by <\/b>Justin Santos<\/span> is licensed under <\/b>CC BY-SA 2.0<\/b><\/a>. <\/b><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Donda, Donda, Donda - Kanye West\u2019s homonymous new album was\nreleased just a few weeks ago and it begins with a very haunting and beautiful chant\nof Donda West\u2019s name. It is no secret the rapper has struggled over the years with\nmental health issues, so, for many fans, it was great seeing the musician back to\nspotlight for something other than tabloid-worthy news.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1311,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[16,17,29,30,48,38,37,36,47,35],"class_list":["post-729","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cirurgias-plasticas","tag-antropologia","tag-ciencia","tag-cirurgias-plasticas","tag-corpo","tag-eng","tag-legislacao","tag-medicina","tag-musica","tag-ptbr","tag-setembro-21"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/levedura.blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/levedura.blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/levedura.blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/levedura.blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/levedura.blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=729"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/levedura.blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/729\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/levedura.blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/levedura.blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/levedura.blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/levedura.blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}