Dr. Lebovic explains if a breast reduction is considered "cosmetic" surgery.

SACRAMENTO — Six months after Kanye West's mother died following liposuction and breast surgery, two state lawmakers are pushing for greater protections for cosmetic surgery patients.

Such surgeries are increasingly carried out in outpatient clinics, where doctors can avoid the type of rigorous review they would expect at traditional hospitals.

By Amanda Gardner
EmpowHer's HealthDay Reporter

THURSDAY, May 1 (HealthDay News) -- Three women who received derriere-enhancing injections at an unlicensed clinic in North Carolina developed kidney failure after the procedure.

I didn't even know what to list this under. You may have seen a photo of Joan Van Ark as the ad hoc "poster child" for cosmetic surgery gone wild - and bad. It reminded me of the movie, "Millenium," with Cheryl Ladd, Kris Kristofferson and and wildly funny Katherine Hellmann, that takes place in the far future when you have to smoke to stay alive and real skin is a rarity.

Unfortunately, our society is so obsessed with what constitutes sexy, young and desirable that aging gracefully is a hard pill to swallow. Even Nicole Kidman was featured in the MSN story as a botox boo-boo.

As I approach 40 -- the new 20s -- when life begins -- so 'they' say -- my career, health, finances, and vision have all changed dramatically.

I have been proudly educating and serving the beauty, entertainment and medical industries since 1988 and working actively in the worlds of acting and modeling and in the stunt work business. I’ve also worked as a part-time personal fitness and nutrition guru and as a hair and makeup advocate in New York, Los Angeles and New Mexico. Well, this was all going to shift.

I am constantly confronted by the lack of good, consumer-generated health information for women. Just last week, when I blogged about my cataract surgery, I got responses from all over the world telling me that they were forwarding my entry to fathers, mothers, uncles, friends, etc. The same thing happened with my hip replacement blog, which is still out there helping people who want to know what to expect from that surgery.