By Dennis Oda Star-Bulletin
Dr. Gregory Caputy checks a sutured area on Rodney
Beauchamp's head. Beauchamp was in an accident when
he was 3 that disfigured his face, paralyzed his left
hand and cost him an eye.

Surgeon repairs
bodies for those
who can’t pay

One beneficiary of the
plastic surgeon's skills has
a new outlook on life

By Alisa LaVelle
Star-Bulletin

When Rodney Beauchamp was 3, a car accident crushed his skull, and he lost his right eye.

The accident left him with a limp, a paralyzed hand and prominent scars. It also left him growing up angry.

He ignored school and never learned to write. Drugs got him kicked out of his mother's home in Ewa Beach. He ate out of garbage cans.

Then about five years ago, Beauchamp got saved at a Harvest Crusade in Aloha Stadium. He learned to read. He found a place to live on Kapahulu Avenue. He made friends.

Last year, something else happened to Beauchamp, now 30 years old and four years clean of drugs.

"God brought Dr. Caputy to me," Beauchamp said.

Dr. Gregory Caputy donates his plastic surgery skills as a service to his work place and home, and he decided to accept Beauchamp for treatment.

Now that Beauchamp's sur-gery is complete, Caputy's nonprofit Aesthetica Community Services Inc. is looking for a new candidate for treatment.

By Dennis Oda Star-Bulletin
Rodney Beauchamp was in an accident when
he was 3 that disfigured his face, paralyzed his
left hand and cost him an eye.

"I feel I should give back to people here (rather) than going to Botswana and walking away," said the Honolulu surgeon.

Caputy founded Aesthetica Community Services to help people like Beauchamp who cannot afford plastic surgery. Otherwise, Beauchamp's surgical costs would have been $10,000, Caputy said. Medicaid paid for operating room costs.

On the right side of Beauchamp's face, above his false eye, were raised scars from reconstructive surgery. His forehead had a semi-circular scar that looked like a swollen third eye. Scarring on his cheek pulled his mouth into a permanent scowl.

Caputy used a technique called resurfacing that made the scars less noticeable. Five main surgeries spread over a year completed Beauchamp's treatment.

The last surgery was finished in May. Beauchamp is pleased with the results.

"I felt I lost my mind in my accident," he said. "I had a hard time remembering. I forget things real quick.

"But now, now I feel I can think and I can remember," he said.

Rainbow Program seeks to help a child with a deformity Star-Bulletin staff Aesthetica Community Services, a nonprofit organization, is looking for a new recipient for its Rainbow Program. The Rainbow Program treats, free of charge, a child who has a congenital or acquired deformity responsive to proven plastic or laser surgery methods. No new treatments or experimentation will be done. For more information, contact Aesthetica Community Services Inc., One Kapiolani Building, 600 Kapiolani Blvd., Suite 409, Honolulu 96813. Call (808) 536-8866 office (808) 536-8867 fax. Or e-mail at caputy_bliss@msn.com