Changing Perceptions, Changing Lives

A compelling account of the struggle to redefine Black beauty through research, thereby changing the notion- the old maxim that to be considered beautiful, one has to look Caucasian.
In Changing Perceptions, Changing Lives, professor Ferdinand Ofodile captivates us with his narration of his journey from Nnobi, a small village in rural Nigeria to America where he attained the distinction of becoming the first Black plastic surgeon to be appointed a Clinical Professor Emeritus in the specialty of Plastic Surgery.
In 1982 professor Ofodile became the Chairman of Harlem Hospital Plastic Surgery Program and Assistant Professor of Surgery at Columbia University in New York. There were less than fifty Black plastic surgeons in the USA at the time, a pitiful number compared to with the thousands of White plastic surgeons in the country. To make matters worse, there was general misconception of Black aesthetic features, Black plastic surgery and Black plastic surgeons as a group. Professor Ofodile became part of a small vanguard of Black plastic surgeons that, independently, committed their research and careers to changing those misconceptions. In this book, professor Ofodile gives a fascinating step by step account of his contributions to that effort.