Fast Confession - Plastic Surgeon Roman Kufa: In the Past a Guy Going for a Cosmetic Surgery Was Taboo, Now their Number is Rocketing
One of the Czech "more well-known" plastic surgeons who was gifted not only with skilled hands, but also a handsome face. Roman Kufa is a leading doctor and co-owner of the Centre of Aesthetic Medicine, Perfect Clinic, who had also been the founder of the Department of Plastic Surgery in FN Motol and is moreover a court expert in the field of plastic surgery. His diary is jammed by appointments from dawn to dusk. Yet there are things, without which he cannot imagine his life; children and sport. He found a tiny window to make an interview with Luxury Prague Life on Saturday evening.
Doctor, we meet at the clinic on Saturday evening, do you work at weekends?
No, not any more. I once operated during weekends, for two consecutive years. I also travelled abroad in those days. From Monday to Friday here, weekends away... That is all behind me, I don´t want that any longer.
In the Quick Confession you told me that you cannot imagine a day without any sports activity. But I think a day only has twenty-four hours; moreover, you have a family. How do you manage it all?
With difficulties. My work is really time consuming. Mentally too, which I have learned to cope with. Or simply one learns to live with it. But time is the real problem. To be able to manage it all, I get up really early. At half past six I am already at the swimming pool. I swim for an hour and then back to work, where I stay until the evening.
How do you manage to have the time for the children? Do you for example drive them to school?
Mondays and Thursdays I drive my older daughter to school. But when I come from work, I try to spend time with them, but there is not much time during the week. So I read at least some fairy tale to the younger one, and ask the older one what happened at school, and if she wants to, we go for a run. I am trying to devote the entire weekends to the children.
Can you for example advise your children also about school subjects you were not so good at yourself?
Up to a certain age I was, but with the older daughter who is fifteen, it is difficult. That´s because she is studying an English grammar school where everything is taught in English and I have to admit that because of that I cannot explain physics or chemistry. But my daughter is really very clever, so she can handle it herself and in turn that makes me very happy indeed.
This brings forth the next question; fifteen - that´s puberty and boys. How do you cope with that?
She is very sensible like that, but slowly I am preparing for that. I didn´t get any weapon yet, but I think that it will not be needed, she has got it quite sorted in her mind.
You are one of few plastic surgeons who are very handsome, but I have noticed that you don´t dye your hair, although you are going grey. Do you want to look like Richard Gere?
(Laughter) No. It seems okay to me. I cannot prevent something that is given genetically. I started to go grey in fact already at my grammar school. It is me, I would not change that.
Are you ageing with grace?
No one wants to age, nor do I. But it is about keeping fit, for one to be able to do sport, to do all your favourite activities. That´s what it´s all about. And that you go grey? Well, so what.
Are there any patients who ask for you specifically?
Yes, there are.
This is because you and also Libor Kment are known for being the most good-looking plastic surgeons.
It would be a pity if this were the case. I hope that if a client wants me that´s because she or he likes the results of my work.
Don´t tell me that you did not notice the greater interest of women.
At work you don´t notice it. Here the work is done at a very professional level. For each client I have a certain amount of designated time, that is a consultation. I explain the operation to be carried out, what the complications may be, do the examination, the booking. That is all. I have no time to talk with my patients about private life, and even if I had, it wouldn´t work, I want to keep a distance. Being personal is no good. And in private? Everyone is attractive by something; something that can capture the attention of others. I don´t dwell on that.
Just so as to put things right - you have a partner?
Yes, of course.
Are women shy with you?
Some are. Even if they want new breasts they are struggling with shyness. But that´s part of it.
I have a specific question. I know that there is still a lot of breast augmentations, eyelids, or nose ops, but I am interested in liposuction - the planet is inexorably getting fatter.
Yes, the operation of the abdomen is frequent. I can confirm increase of these operations.
And how about men?
In the past, a man going for a plastic surgery was taboo, now there is a growing trend. Men, too, began to be concerned about their looks. They think it is cool. Mainly eyelids, liposuction of hips, abdomen. No legs, they are spared of that because fat deposits in men are on the abdomen, hips, breast, but never the legs.
The breasts are becoming to be a civilisation disease.
In the case of men we are talking about gynaecomastia which can occur when there is hormonal disbalance where the mammary gland enlarges. Otherwise in this country the level of obesity in population is still okay, but for example in America it is really bad.
I was fascinated by the fact that you yourself sutured your leg or that you cut out your own birthmark. How can you do that yourself??
I anaesthetised it. The injection hurts, then you feel nothing.
What happened to you?
I wounded myself falling off my bike, so I stitched it up. I didn´t feel like going anywhere. I have the kit at home. But with this I went to our clinic, it was a weekend.
Have you been to the ER with something?
Oh yes, with a broken arm and torn ligaments in the knee.
If that was all because of the bike, then why on earth do you keep climbing on it when you keep falling off?
(Laughter) I just do a lot of sport and I like it. In addition to the bike I also do other things. It is not that I have one sport which I love terribly. I love any activity. I need to be able to go let my hair down. I do more or less everything I come across. I also enjoy that in sport you have friends with whom the activity is more fun. That is, apart from swimming. I am alone there. But there is a stable bunch, we know each other, say hi to each other. I also run and some time ago I started to golf, but you need time to get better. I got to some handicap, but it is not decreasing because I don´t have the time. But I still think it is fun: I am out in fresh air with friends, where we can discuss various things, we are in beautiful nature, it is a super walk. And then I have a bunch of friends with whom I go abroad, planning combinations of golf with another activity such as tennis, giant slalom or cycling. There you calculate points. It is up to three, four days and each day you sum up points for a completed activity. Finally a winner is declared. It is an unbelievable competition, you go full throttle, from morning to night, to the utmost limit. I have fun doing that.
What´s the winnings?
We have a green jacket that is passed around to the winner, and he who wins, may embroider initials on it with the year in which he won.
When there is a bunch of guys … is it associated with drinks in the evening?
A glass and a discussion of the results after such a competition is of course part of it. No bacchanalia there.
In the Fast Confessions you said that sometimes you have a drink, but I cannot imagine that there is any drinking done here when there are so many sports done here.
You said it correctly: sometimes I drink alcohol, when I am with people whom I like. These sporting events are based on sport and competition, and certainly not on alcohol.
You have said that you are going for three weeks of holidays. Where are you going to go? You will really switch the phone off for such a long time?
I trying not to pick up the phone. Actually I in general try not to and prefer SMSs. In the operating room I cannot make calls. So when I have time, I respond to an SMS message, but otherwise phone calls are dealt with by secretaries and if there is something is urgent, they come to tell me. And I am going on holiday with my older daughter. I take a small motorhome, where I put the bikes, in-line skates, tennis rackets, running and hiking shoes. We are going to Austria and we will do it all. We will go to the lakes, then the mountains. We will try to go through it all.
Does she want at this age to spend holiday with her Dad?
Well she was not keen, but finally agreed. Let´s see if she will go the next year, too. In any case this holiday she still is going to.
What do you as a doctor think about politics? That there are communists in power again...
I am angry. I am still of the generation which experienced Communism and I regret that people quickly forgot how we lived here. Despite that, I had a beautiful childhood. I have a super father, super mother, we were three brothers. At that time nobody had anything. Nothing, nobody. People went to work for eight hours. I am at work twelve, fourteen hours. But at that time you had one thing - time you could spend with children. We all lived in a block of flats where you had many friends. It would seem that for family life that was better, because the family was together, but of course what is essential that we could not have any business or travel. That is why after the revolution I enjoyed freedom terribly. I went for a year to England, to learn the language. There I came across plastic surgery. Without this option I would not even know what plastic surgery is. I would like to say that I really like the huge freedom, when one is responsible only for himself and thanks to travelling you can learn and widen your horizons.
Will the present government influence your business? They can no longer prohibit travel or business, or can they...
Let us hope. It bothers me in principle. The regime is a bad one and they should not even appear there now. They should have no political power. But otherwise my business is fundamentally unaffected. So far. But on the other hand everything is in jeopardy.
How does your clinic do in competition with the other ones, there are so many...
By the number of beds, procedures and doctors we belong to those more notable ones, even on a European scale.
Do you think that perhaps one day this discipline will get into a decline?
I don´t think so. A man will never be happy getting old. But the procedures may change. In some twenty, thirty years, physicians will intervene in genetic susceptibilities, preventing disease. Perhaps they will also tackle certain deformities and there may not be children with sticking-out ears. I do not know, we shall see.
To finish, tell me what is your next objective, a dream?
The whole life we have some objectives. Now I have the objective to educate young doctors, to teach them something and pass on my experience so that our workplace could move forward. In personal life I want to bring up my children well. In order for them to be able to appreciate ordinary things and realise that nothing is for free.
