A Cut Too Deep

On 15 March 2025, Vineet Dubey, a 37-year-old assistant engineer at a power plant in Kanpur, died two days after undergoing a hair transplant procedure at Empire Clinic. His family alleges that the procedure was performed without the necessary preoperative screening for his hypertension and diabetes. The clinic was operated by Dr Anushka Tiwari, a dental surgeon with no recognised qualification in cosmetic or transplant surgery. Another patient, 35-year-old software engineer Mayank Katiyar, underwent a similar procedure at the same clinic in November 2024 and died the following day. Both men developed severe complications shortly after their procedures. The clinic has since been sealed, and Dr Tiwari is currently absconding.

These are not freak tragedies. They are warnings—about an industry that has grown faster than the rules meant to govern it.

In February 2025, Sanil, a resident of Kochi, underwent a two-day hair transplant at Insight Derma Clinic in Panampilly Nagar. Shortly after, he began experiencing severe pain and swelling. Despite multiple visits, he was given only painkillers and steroids. As his condition worsened, he sought help at Lourdes Hospital, where he was diagnosed with necrotising fasciitis—a rapidly progressing, flesh-eating bacterial infection. He has since undergone 13 surgeries, including skin grafts, and now requires a vacuum-assisted closure device to manage the wound. An FIR has been registered against the clinic’s owner, Dr Sarathkumar, and two staff members, all of whom are absconding. The irony is stark: a man walked in to restore his appearance and emerged disfigured, stitched, and bandaged—his scalp now a wound that medicine must keep open to heal.

In Thiruvananthapuram, 31-year-old software engineer Neethu M.S. underwent liposuction on 22 February 2025 at a private cosmetic clinic. Following the surgery, she experienced severe fatigue and was advised to consume salted rice gruel and water. Her condition deteriorated rapidly, leading to cardiac arrest and admission to the ICU. Neethu spent 21 days on ventilator support and underwent dialysis. A blocked artery restricted blood circulation, resulting in the amputation of four fingers and five toes. Investigations revealed that the clinic had been operating without a valid medical license. It has since been sealed, and legal proceedings initiated.

According to Dr Harish Kumar Kabilan, Consultant Plastic Surgeon at Manipal Hospital, Yeshwanthpur, Bengaluru, “Even when done correctly, cosmetic procedures carry inherent risks including infection, bleeding, scarring, and in rare cases, fat embolism or airway compromise including anaesthetic complications. These are medical procedures, not mere parlour-based beauty treatments, and must be approached with the same seriousness as any other surgery.”

But in India’s mushrooming beauty economy, aesthetic medicine is less a branch of science than a buffet. Want a rhinoplasty with your root canal? A thread lift squeezed into your lunch hour? What ought to be a meticulous orchestration of surgical skill and vigilant post-operative care has instead devolved into a carousel of online bookings and airbrushed illusions. The tools are surgical, but the logic is retail.

According to the Indian Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons (IAAPS), a qualified plastic surgeon undergoes more than a decade of medical training before being allowed to conduct a cosmetic procedure. In contrast, many clinics now employ practitioners with only BDS or MBBS degrees, often armed with crash-course diplomas in “medical cosmetology”. The result is a proliferation of poorly regulated, highly invasive procedures being marketed with influencer-style gusto—and administered with frightening nonchalance.

In the Kanpur case, state health officials confirmed that the dentist running Empire Clinic was not qualified to perform surgical hair transplants. The consent forms—when they existed—were vague, glossing over complications. Yet the clinic was widely advertised online with cheerful before-and-after montages, presenting itself as both medical and modern. In this new cosmetic economy, slick branding often eclipses basic competence.

According to Dr Kabilan, “In a properly run medical setup, patients are always counselled about risks, benefits, and alternatives before undergoing any procedure. But in many unregulated clinics, there’s little to no informed consent—patients are often unaware of the potential complications until something goes wrong. This could also be due to fear of losing the patient if they are told the complications.”

Medical Councils in India do not have a unified, enforceable framework for who may perform aesthetic procedures. The Dental Council bars members from operating outside the oral region, yet terms like “facial aesthetics” are routinely used to justify interventions far beyond that scope. The Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) regulates injectables and devices—but not the qualifications of the hands that wield them. Botox may be legal; the person injecting it may be wholly untrained.

To patients, everything looks professional: white coats, glossy interiors, clean instruments. But beneath the surface lies a dangerous blur between medicine and indulgence. The clinics, for their part, are responding to a market where self-optimisation is no longer seen as vanity but as virtue.

India’s beauty and personal care market is projected to reach $28 billion by 2027. Social media has both normalised and glamourised aesthetic tweaks. The old taboo around cosmetic enhancement has given way to an aspirational culture where “fixes” are seen as self-investment. In this world, contouring becomes currency—and the body, a project under perpetual renovation.

The estimated death rate for cosmetic procedures is low—between 0.001% and 0.01%—but that number, Dr Kabilan warns, becomes far less reassuring in the wrong hands. “The risk increases dramatically in non-medical or unregulated environments,” he says. And those environments are no longer rare. “Injectables, hair transplants, and even surgeries are being marketed and apparently being delivered in beauty parlours and rented flats,” he adds.

Those most affected are not celebrities or the ultra-rich, but ordinary men and women who save up for small procedures that promise transformation. They walk into white-walled clinics believing they are choosing safety. In truth, they are gambling on it.

Until regulation meets the pace of the market, the illusion of precision will persist. And behind every perfect “after” photo, there will remain—just out of frame—a patient who didn’t survive the cut.

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