‘Atlanta Plastic’ focuses on three black plastic surgeons and growing popularity with minorities

THEY ARE aiming to reshape the face of reality television.

“Atlanta Plastic,” which debuts at 10 p.m. July 31 on Lifetime, follows three African-American plastic surgeons and their patients.

“By doing this show, I felt that I could inspire people from disadvantaged backgrounds and show there are other paths to success beyond entertaining, running and jumping or selling drugs,” says Dr. Wright A. Jones, 38, who has been practicing for about five years.

Jones has 10 siblings and grew up in a rural Georgia town, the son of a school bus driver and a truck driver.

He was moved to go into plastic surgery after a plastic surgeon helped a cousin who was burned badly in a fire.

“I just thought it was a cool job,” he says. “A lot of my friends dreamed of going into the NBA or the NFL. I dreamed of becoming a surgeon.”

He notes that plastic surgery is growing increasingly popular among minorities even as it remains a loaded topic, rife with issues of ethnic identity and standards of beauty.

Jones says he helps his patients work through such issues, but that many need little convincing.

In Atlanta, he says, “It’s booming. It’s almost become something cool to do.”

Statistics back him up.

From 2005 to 2013, the American Society of Plastic Surgeons estimates that the number of cosmetic procedures performed on Asian-Americans increased by 125 percent, Hispanics by 85 percent and African-Americans by 56 percent. Procedures on non-Hispanic whites increased just 35 percent.

“I don’t believe that African-American surgeons are better at operating on ethnic patients,” Jones says. “My thought is that your knowlege, experience and compassion are what makes you a great plastic surgeon — not the color of your skin.”