Salt Lake City plastic surgeon helps girl regain confidence with just one procedure

<p style=”line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 11pt;” dir=”ltr”><span style=”font-size: 12px; font-family: Verdana; color: #000000; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;”>A young woman from Park City, Utah, who was</span> <a style=”text-decoration: none;” href=”http://www.people.com/article/utah-girl-large-ears-free-ear-pinning-surgery” target=”_blank”><span style=”font-size: 12px; font-family: Verdana; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;”>bullied as a teen finally got the plastic surgery</span></a> <span style=”font-size: 12px; font-family: Verdana; color: #000000; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;”>she’s been waiting for at no cost — thanks to a Salt Lake City surgeon.</span></p><p style=”line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 11pt;” dir=”ltr”><span style=”font-size: 12px; font-family: Verdana; color: #000000; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;”>But instead of focusing on a more common area, like the nose or chest, Isabelle Stark got</span> <a style=”text-decoration: none;” href=”http://www.carbonated.tv/news/bullied-utah-teen-isabelle-stark-gets-free-ear-surgery-steven-mobley” target=”_blank”><span style=”font-size: 12px; font-family: Verdana; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;”>surgery on her ears.</span></a></p><p style=”line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 11pt;” dir=”ltr”><span style=”font-size: 12px; font-family: Verdana; color: #000000; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;”>As a junior high student, Stark had been called names despite trying to hide her protruding ears. She said that she tried growing her hair out or wearing hats to hide the oversized feature.</span></p><p style=”line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 11pt;” dir=”ltr”><span style=”font-size: 12px; font-family: Verdana; color: #000000; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;”>”Kids called me ‘Dumbo’ or said that I looked like a mouse,” Stark said of her teenage years.</span></p><p style=”line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 11pt;” dir=”ltr”><span style=”font-size: 12px; font-family: Verdana; color: #000000; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;”>Now 18 years old, she still vividly remembers the days when kids would pull on her ears and tease her at school.</span></p><p style=”line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 11pt;” dir=”ltr”><span style=”font-size: 12px; font-family: Verdana; color: #000000; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;”>”I tried to brush it off, but almost every day, I went home and cried,” she told</span> <span style=”font-size: 12px; font-family: Verdana; color: #000000; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;”>People</span> <span style=”font-size: 12px; font-family: Verdana; color: #000000; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;”>magazine. “For my entire life, my only wish was to have normal-sized ears.”</span></p><p style=”line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 11pt;” dir=”ltr”><span style=”font-size: 12px; font-family: Verdana; color: #000000; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;”>As a child, people often told Stark’s mother, Ramona, that Isabelle’s ears were “cute,” but once she hit middle school, other kids tormented her relentlessly.</span></p><p style=”line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 11pt;” dir=”ltr”><span style=”font-size: 12px; font-family: Verdana; color: #000000; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;”>When Ramona looked into the cost of ear-pinning surgery for her teen daughter, she found that it was just too expensive, costing about $7,000 and not covered by insurance.</span></p><p style=”line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 11pt;” dir=”ltr”><span style=”font-size: 12px; font-family: Verdana; color: #000000; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;”>Enter Dr. Steven Mobley, a plastic surgeon from Salt Lake City who performs otoplasty surgery, or ear-pinning. On June 19, Mobley pinned Stark’s ears back at no cost to her through his</span> <a style=”text-decoration: none;” href=”http://www.mobleymd.org/” target=”_blank”><span style=”font-size: 12px; font-family: Verdana; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;”>Mobley Foundation</span></a><span style=”font-size: 12px; font-family: Verdana; color: #000000; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;”>, a charity he started for low-income school children who have been bullied.</span></p><p style=”line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 11pt;” dir=”ltr”><span style=”font-size: 12px; font-family: Verdana; color: #000000; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;”>Mobley founded his charity and began offering the free procedures back in 2008, as he recognized that many children from low-income families can’t afford the sometimes expensive cosmetic procedure financing.</span></p><p style=”line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 11pt;” dir=”ltr”><span style=”font-size: 12px; font-family: Verdana; color: #000000; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;”>Yet for Mobley, it’s also personal: he was once a victim of similar persecution growing up.</span></p><p style=”line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 11pt;” dir=”ltr”><span style=”font-size: 12px; font-family: Verdana; color: #000000; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;”>”I know what it’s like to be bullied about something you can’t control,” he told</span> <span style=”font-size: 12px; font-family: Verdana; color: #000000; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;”>People</span><span style=”font-size: 12px; font-family: Verdana; color: #000000; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;”>. “I was shy and in hiding for most of my school years.”</span></p><p style=”line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 11pt;” dir=”ltr”><span style=”font-size: 12px; font-family: Verdana; color: #000000; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;”>The surgeon, now 45, remembers the long, shaggy hair that he wore in high school to hide his ears, and said it made him look more like Luke Skywalker even though everyone else wanted to look like Tom Cruise in</span> <span style=”font-size: 12px; font-family: Verdana; color: #000000; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;”>Top Gun</span><span style=”font-size: 12px; font-family: Verdana; color: #000000; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;”>.</span></p><p style=”line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 11pt;” dir=”ltr”><span style=”font-size: 12px; font-family: Verdana; color: #000000; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;”>Mobley, who eventually got otoplasty in college, said he was first inspired to help others in 2002, when he had to turn away a family who couldn’t afford the surgery for their son.</span></p><p style=”line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 11pt;” dir=”ltr”><span style=”font-size: 12px; font-family: Verdana; color: #000000; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;”>Now, however, Mobley has helped several children improve their quality of life through his foundation, which helps kids between the ages of six and 18. Although women are more likely to get cosmetic procedures and had about 90.6% or</span> <a style=”text-decoration: none;” href=”http://www.bodyenvi.com/blog/then-and-now-how-attitudes-towards-cosmetic-surgery-have-changed” target=”_blank”><span style=”font-size: 12px; font-family: Verdana; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;”>10.3 million treatments done in 2013</span></a> <span style=”font-size: 12px; font-family: Verdana; color: #000000; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;”>in the U.S., Mobley has performed ear-pinning surgery on both boys and girls.</span></p><p style=”line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 11pt;” dir=”ltr”><span style=”font-size: 12px; font-family: Verdana; color: #000000; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;”>As for Stark, she was so thrilled that she cried once the bandages came off and she could see her results.</span></p><p style=”line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 11pt;” dir=”ltr”><span style=”font-size: 12px; font-family: Verdana; color: #000000; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;”>”It was the biggest day of my life,” she said of her surgery. “I can’t say thank you enough. My ears are so natural now and have a perfect curve. I no longer feel that I have to hide them.”</span></p>

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