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The ugly road to beauty
From B-cups to D-cups
It was a hot and humid day last summer when Lisa rode in Hernandez's Chrysler along Interstate 35 to Nuevo Laredo.
Once they crossed the international bridge into Mexico, they meandered through crowded, potholed streets before turning into the full parking lot at the clinic.
"Wow, this is nice!" Lisa exclaimed as she entered the two-story, cinderblock building.
Hernandez showed Lisa to her spare room, whose walls were bare except for a small cross hanging above the bed. Ants were crawling around the sink in the small bathroom, where dusty, hot air blew in through an open window.
"I think a lot of people care about having a really pretty room," she said while looking around. "They are willing to pay the extra $25,000 to have that comfort. I felt that being able to stay a few more days (to recover from surgery) was better."
He studied her face, neck, upper arms and breasts. With a black marker, he dabbed a few dots on her face and neck, and drew lines on her arms and breasts.
He decided that she would need to go up another bra size. She had asked for a B-cup, but Hernandez talked her into a C-cup. Villarreal upgraded that to larger D-cup implants.
"Her skin is too stretched out," Villarreal said. "We need to go larger to fill in the space."
'He seemed like he was in charge'
It would be but one operation in a round of serious procedures. But the atmosphere in the room was anything but sedate. Banter gave the clinic more of a locker-room feel, rather than the usual sterile setting of a hospital.
"You're going to have some hooters," Hernandez said with a laugh as Villarreal sized up Lisa.
Lisa didn't mind. Her spirits were high as she praised both the surgeon and Hernandez for putting her at ease.
"He just seemed like he was in charge, and he seems like a human being," she said of the surgeon.
A search by the Express-News found Villarreal is board certified in Mexico, and his credentials are posted on a Web site promoting the clinic. But no accreditation for the clinic could be found through a check of government records.
Hernandez disputed that and last week faxed what he said was proof of the accreditation to the newspaper. But the document was dated in 1994 and was for a different clinic that Hernandez previously said had closed, Clinica San Antonio. In Mexico, health accreditations must be renewed every year.
Hernandez said Friday he didn't realize his clinic needed to be reaccredited annually.
Mexican health officials advise patients to deal only with clinics accredited by the Ministry of Health. At the same time, they note, only about 130 of the 3,000 private hospitals in Mexico have earned that distinction.
"My guess is that a few of them, if any, are accredited (along the border)," said Dr. Enrique Roelas, the deputy health minister for Mexico's public health service.
Lost in translation
Official imprimaturs are one thing. Once in a clinic, patients put their trust in the doctors and nurses. Lisa discovered that can be difficult when they speak different languages.
Before surgery, a nurse began to prep Lisa by shaving her pubic hair.
"Why are you shaving me?" she asked the nurse as a reporter translated.
The nurse said she was instructed to prepare her for liposuction.
"No, no liposuction, no liposuction," Lisa said emphatically.
"Ay, perdon," the nurse apologized.
Lisa confronted Hernandez about the incident as she was walking to the operating room.
It was a miscommunication, he said, between him and the nurse. He meant for the nurse to go to the room next to Lisa's.
Pretending to pick her shaved hair off the floor and placing it over his lip, he joked, "Oh, I just wanted to use it (pubic hair) as a mustache. I'm sorry, honey."
Lisa didn't laugh.
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