SHOULD COSMETIC SURGERY ADS BE BANNED?

Here we go again: Another timely and provocative blog
from Fort Myers plastic surgeon, Dr. Robert Brueck MD

Apparently the British are getting ready to ban or recommend a ban on advertising by cosmetic surgeons. This is the recommendation by the British Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons. They are proposing a 6 point plan.

Ban all ads for cosmetic surgery.
Re-establish an implant register
Re-clarify dermal fillers as medicine (this would restrict who could inject ie. must be a doctor)
Register all aesthetic surgeons
Mandate a safety audit
Revalidation or recertification

This has been prompted in part by the recent PIP implant controversy. For years physicians in our country were not allowed to advertise. Your advertisement was your reputation. If it was good, patients would come and if not well you know the rest of the story. Maybe, for the sake of patient safety we need to long for the old days.

Perhaps they have a point. But with $1.07 billion spent on cosmetic surgery in the US in 2010, there certainly appears to be a hunger for knowledge about plastic surgery procedures in this country.