Medical digital imaging reprinted with permission of Aprille Kelly/Aprille.com
BEFORE: Johns Hopkins in an 1853 portrait	AFTER: Johns Hopkins as he might look after a nip and tuck at the JH Cosmetic Center.

If Johns Hopkins were alive today and needed to have “a little work done,” he would almost certainly repair to the Cosmetic Center where about a dozen dermatologists, plastic surgeons and other specialists would be standing by to provide the face and forehead lifts, rhinoplasty (nose), blepharoplasty (eyelids), Botox injections and all manner of procedures the venerable philanthropist might require.

But elective cosmetic surgery at an academic medical center? Whatever would the founding father think? That, in essence, was the theme of a recent article which explored this latest trend in medicine and ran in the Washington Post along with the illustration above.

The multidisciplinary Johns Hopkins Cosmetic Center at Green Spring Station, directed by plastic surgeon Craig Vander Kolk and dermatologist Patrick McElgunn, opened in June. Now it sees about 120 patients per day. Clearly, they trust their image, as the Center’s slogan goes, “to medicine’s most respected name.”