Tokyo - Clinics offering cosmetic surgery are on the increase in Japan and so are the number of complaints over botched jobs.

The rise coincides with the popularity of minor cosmetic operations that involve only minor incisions or none at all but which are often not lasting in their effects.

There is no central body that regulates the cosmetic procedures.

In Japan, anyone who is a certified doctor is allowed to practise cosmetic surgery.

'The usual way for a doctor to enter the field is to participate in seminars on specific cosmetic therapies,' said a spokesman for the Japan Association of Cosmetic Surgeons (JACS).

Doing so entitles the doctor to a certificate of attendance, which is apparently all he or she needs to set up shop.

In the highly competitive environment here, there are several medical associations in the field.

One is made up of doctors who started out in reconstructive surgery while its rival comprises doctors who are from other fields of medicine.

A third and smaller body, JACS, was set up in 1997.

It arranges study sessions and seminars to help members or their staff upgrade their skills. It also offers a 'help line' for people with complaints involving cosmetic surgery.

According to the National Consumer Affairs Centre, these have risen from 865 in 2002 to 1,253 in 2006.

In a recent case, Dr Koji Inayoshi, who runs beauty clinics in Mito and Tsukuba cities, was fined 1 million yen (S$13,000) last November for using unqualified clerical staff to perform hair-removal procedures with laser equipment.

Dr Inayoshi's case suggests that rising demand for procedures such as botox injections and non-surgical face-lifts is part of the problem. Practitioners have more patients than they can cope with even as more clinics and doctors are going into the aesthetic medicine business.

In 2005, there were 824 clinics offering cosmetic procedures, up from 377 in 1996. Hospitals here are also offering cosmetic procedures in their units that used to focus on 'heavy duty' reconstructive surgery.

There are no figures on the popularity of cosmetic surgery leading to a depletion of practitioners in other fields.

But anecdotal accounts suggest that quite a few gynaecologists, drained by too many life-and-death decisions and long and uncertain working hours, have switched to the world of maintaining good looks.

This story was first published in thesundaytimes on Apr 20, 2008.