A hook nose is one of the common features of the people of the Black Sea region in northern Turkey, but nowadays more residents are seeking rhinoplasty doctors say.

Plastic surgeons in Trabzon, a major city in the region, say they operate on some 80 people every month. It might spell the end for a facial feature that locals have been proud of once, so much so that they used to hold contests for the longest nose.

Three surgeons at the medical school hospital of Karadeniz Technical University in Trabzon operate on an average of 240 people every month and a considerable portion of the operations are for nose jobs. Men simply seek readjustment of their long noses while women want noses modeled after celebrities they love. As the region saw an influx of tourists from the Arabian Peninsula in recent years, Arabs have also joined the growing clientele of surgeons in Trabzon. Professor Muhammet Uraloğlu, one of the three surgeons at the hospital, says they noted a rise in plastic surgeries in recent years and their hospital might be "breaking records" with the highest number of nose surgeries in Turkey. Their experience in the field makes them first choice for many patients seeking rhinoplasty, Uraloğlu says.

"Some patients visit us with photos of celebrities and say they want ‘a nose like hers or his' but we can only offer them a reconstruction based on the patient's facial features. They are satisfied when they see a model of how their nose will be after surgery in a computer animation. We go with naturalness because if you ignore the natural measures, you can end up with deformed noses we call ‘Pinocchio nose' or enlarged nostrils," he added. The professor said their patients were not only those seeking to change their looks but also people with health problems.