I've always been passionately keen on sports. Sport forms an extremely pleasant counterbalance to my professional activity. I very often practise sports with young people, whose zest for a challenge I share. Water skiing and surfing are my favourite water sports. When I play golf - which is usually frustrating for a perfectionist - I try to remain positive and restrain my temperament, but also to train my concentration and coordination of movement sequences. In winter, on the other hand, I feel an urge to go up into the mountains, where as an enthusiastic snowboarder I would most of all like to leave my tracks in the soft powdery snow far off the prepared ski slopes - but for safety reasons I keep to the marked ski runs. Fitness is part of my personal timetable three times a week. Physical fitness to me is in harmony with intellectual performance - mens sana in corpore sano.
What makes my profession so attractive? Its diversity. It’s a fascinating discipline that brings you face to face daily with many different aspects of life and requires me to deal with multi-faceted human problems. There’s no routine, but a constant attention to detail. It’s a magnificent profession which enables you to establish many rich and varied contacts, but a very demanding, even pitiless job, in which external appearances make or mark the first contact with both the client and the judge. The profession of lawyer is a job in which a person's facial expression and physique help to determine whether or not the indispensable relationship of trust is established.
There's nothing superficial about aestheticism or the pursuit of beauty. For my part, I consider that aesthetics extends well beyond the concept of beauty. Aesthetic sensitivity goes hand in hand with order, cleanliness and respect for other people. Taking care of one's person is also a sign of consideration for others. Paying attention to aesthetics is a way of life and an attitude of mind that also encompasses caring for and strengthening the body, a refinement that was already highly-developed by the Ancient Greeks.
Being satisfied with my physique, I would most probably never have thought of a face lift if I hadn't sustained a very serious cycling accident a few years ago. It was the desire to correct the scar on my forehead and the resultant slight asymmetry at the level of the superciliary arch that made me turn to aesthetic surgery and more specifically to Dr. Urs Burki, after having consulted several other plastic surgeons who were unable to convince me. Having grown up in a family of entrepreneurs and architects, I'm very sensitive to correct proportions and the harmony that emanates from them. The face has something special that touches on our innermost self. I had already consulted several plastic surgeons. The aesthetic correction I wanted to obtain didn't seem easy to achieve. A surgeon who had examined me intimated that the accident had made me look ten years older. Today, with a successful face lift, I've redeemed those years.
When I first met Dr. Burki, I liked several things about him right away. First of all, the fact that he's able to judge a situation quickly because he has so many references and comparisons, which denotes sound expertise, the result of experience. Then, an ability to make an accurate assessment and use clear language. After he had first listened to me carefully, Dr. Burki explained the planned operating procedure clearly and comprehensively, in all details. The scar from the face lift would be located not at the hairline since I do a lot of sport, which pushes my hair backwards and would make the scar more visible, but in a natural fold of the forehead, which would also attenuate the scar from the accident. I liked the idea right away. Another important point was that the operation didn’t require general anaesthesia. But above all, with Dr. Burki I was sure he would do only what would contribute to a natural and harmonious result. It was also very important for me to be assured that my natural facial features would be kept unaltered.
I was convinced that the operation would be a success, because I was in excellent health, physically and mentally fit and knew that with Dr. Burki I was in the hands of a master of his art. But what I hadn’t foreseen was that my professional activities would catch up with me again so quickly. I had been waiting for a judgement to be handed down for a long time. It came on the day of the operation. I had ten days to finalize a notice of appeal. The evening of the operation my secretary brought me the file, which I began to work on immediately and the next day I went back to the office. On top of this there was already a family celebration coming up at the weekend.
Really very happy with my face lift, about six months later I spent an evening with a charming young lady who noticed nothing about the operation and, what is more, thought I was ten years younger. Sixteen months have gone by since then and our marriage and the birth of Alexander are imminent.
Bernhard Cron, Geneva