COMMUNITY OUTREACH
Mission Plasticos:
Reshaping Lives By Amy Carpenter-Aquino
ASPS member Karen Leong, MD, is so committed to helping breast cancer survivors in need of reconstructive surgery that she performed a volunteer surgery while 37 weeks pregnant. Dr. Leong is lead surgeon for Reshaping Lives California (soon to be Reshaping Lives America), which serves, among other patients, low-income and uninsured women who are postmastectomy and in need of reconstructive breast surgeries. “These women are able to have their disease treated, but once they have the cancer removed, it’s deemed a cosmetic concern for them to receive reconstruction,” Dr. Leong explains. “It’s pretty devastating for a woman to, first of all, receive a diagnosis of breast cancer; second, to go through all those treatments to be given the diagnosis of cancer-free; and then to be left with a daily constant reminder of what was taken away from them.”
The loss of one or both breasts leaves female patients feeling less feminine, less attractive to their partners and less than whole because part of themselves has been taken away, Dr. Leong notes. “Every time a breast cancer survivor takes off her clothing or is unable to wear a certain type of clothing because of the result of her cancer treatment surgery, I think it changes the way that they view themselves and how they think others view them. It’s like they have that scarlet letter on them: ‘Yes, I’m a survivor, but now I’m deformed.’ ” Reshaping Lives California is the domestic arm of Mission Plasticos, which since 1999 has provided more than 15,000 life-changing reconstructive surgeries to underserved populations through medical mission trips to Mexico, Guatemala, Bolivia and other countries. The shutdown of international travel due to COVID-19 halted trips to foreign countries and prompted Mission Plasticos to shift
There are so many people here with similar reconstruction needs but who were lacking the resources, connections and financial funding necessary. We can’t have a strong international component without an equally strong local component. —Karen Leong, MD
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l PSN: BREAST RECONSTRUCTION 2021
its focus and resources to Reshaping Lives California. “I’ve always been interested in medical missions internationally, but I also thought that there was a domestic, local need that was not being met,” says Dr. Leong, whose practice is based in Newport Beach, Calif. “There are so many people here with similar reconstruction needs but who are lacking the resources, connections and financial funding necessary. We can’t have a strong international component without an equally strong local component.”
A national initiative
Mission Plasticos Executive Director Susan Williamson says they started the Reshaping Lives California program in 2016 after discovering that a primary need in the United States was breast reconstruction surgery for women who had undergone mastectomies. “Fifty-thousand U.S. women live below the poverty line and have breast cancer, and 30,000 of those women are uninsured and can’t afford reconstructive surgery,” Susan notes. Each year, Reshaping Lives California’s volunteer plastic surgeons screen patients and perform surgical procedures supporting breast reconstruction, including placement of tissue expanders and implants, nipple reconstruction and performing a lift on a patient’s original breast to match the reconstructed breast, if only one side was affected. About one-third of the patients who receive a consultation from
