Alka Menon
Doctoral Student, Sociology Department
Graduate Affiliate, MH&B Program
Northwestern University
The Cutting Edge?: Cosmetic Surgery in Malaysia
What counts as medicine? How are marginalized specialties within medicine taken up in countries with middle income resources? This talk begins to address these very broad questions by examining the case of cosmetic surgery in Malaysia. I will give a very brief overview of Malaysia's health system and demographics and then explore how Malaysian plastic surgeons feel about their connection to medicine and their professional status and obligations with examples of their own accounts. This talk draws from pilot interviews with Malaysian plastic surgeons and patients as well as archived oral histories and documents from surgeons in British Malaya.