Ali Mosharrafa, M.D. (left),  Tamir Mosharrafa, M.D.(right)

Ali Mosharrafa, M.D.
Specialty: Cosmetic surgery, breast reconstruction for
breast cancer patients

Years practicing: 13
Medical school: Baylor College of Medicine

Tamir Mosharrafa, M.D.
Specialty: Cosmetic surgery, Mohs reconstruction surgery

Years practicing: 6
Medical school: Baylor College of Medicine

Editor’s note: Ali and Tamir Mosharrafa are brothers who work in the same specialty in Phoenix.

What attracted you to plastic surgery?
Ali: It’s one of the specialties that allows us to treat everything from head to toe, so there’s a lot of diversity. It never gets old. The cosmetic side of it is wonderful because you rarely give people bad news. You’re taking a situation and improving on it and hopefully improving someone’s quality of life.
Tamir: The breadth of the specialties was very attractive to me. We operate on adults and children, men and women, every part of the body. The variety is a lot of fun.

What’s the most unusual surgery a patient has requested?
Tamir: I had a patient ask me to amputate her little toe so she could fit into women’s shoes better, which I respectfully declined.
Ali: I had a woman who one time wanted breast implants, which of course is no big deal. But the reason she wanted them is because all the years she was married her husband wanted her to get them, and now that she was divorced she was going to get them just to show him. Just like what Tamir said, I said no. The surgery was for all the wrong reasons.

What was it like working on the The Beauty Show, which featured patients whom you helped transform surgically?
Tamir: It was a good experience. It was fun to be able to showcase our talents and to do it in a way where there’s going to be an audience of more than just the friends and the family of the patient.
Ali: I had a mentor in plastic surgery who trained me who said that you can make a seven into a nine, but it’s very difficult to take someone who’s a three and make them a nine or a 10. I think we both had patients who would have classified as a three or a four come out as 10s. We were floored to see not just the anatomical changes with surgery, but everything together was really very neat and life-changing for those women. It was a special experience for all of us.

Do you ever wish you could operate on someone’s vanity?
Ali: I always say God bless gravity and vanity. Without those two things we wouldn’t be able to feed these kids. Vanity is good in this business. We’re fortunate to live in a place where the weather is warm and people care about their looks and people are generally fit. Vanity in and of itself is not a bad thing.

When you meet new people, do you automatically think about how to change their appearance?
Tamir: I used to. We learn certain proportions and relationships that are aesthetically ideal. When I was learning about noses, I couldn’t help but walk through the mall and notice every person’s nose. I couldn’t have normal conversations with people because I’m looking at their dorsal hump. My wife actually called me out on it and said, ‘You are a weirdo; why are you looking at people that way?’ I’m just like, ‘I can’t stop studying noses. I’m just fixated on this thing.’ As I was learning about what makes something beautiful I tended to focus on those things. I’m very glad that I don’t do that anymore.