Aesthetic/Cosmetic Surgery and Ethical Challenges

Abstract

Is aesthetic surgery a business guided by marketstructures aimed primarily at material gain and profit ora surgical intervention intended to benefit patients and anintegral part of the health-care system? Is it a frivoloussubspecialty or does it provide a real and much neededservice to a wide range of patients? At present, cosmeticsurgery is passing through an identity crisis as well as anacute ethical dilemma. A closer look from an ethicalviewpoint makes clear that the doctor who offers aestheticinterventions faces many serious ethical problems whichhave to do with the identity of the surgeon as a healer.Aesthetic surgery that works only according to marketcategories runs the risk of losing the view for the real needof patients and will be nothing else than a part of a beautyindustry which has the only aim to sell something, not tohelp people. Such an aesthetic surgery is losing sight ofreal values and makes profit from the ideology of a societythat serves only vanity, youthfulness, and personal success.Unfortunately, some colleagues brag that they chose theplastic surgery specialty just to become rich aesthetic surgeons,using marketing tactics to promote their practice.This is, at present, the image we project. As rightly proposed,going back a little to Hippocrates, to the basics ofbeing a physician, is urgently warranted! Being a physicianis all that a ‘‘cosmetic’’ surgeon should be. In the long run,how one skillfully and ethically practices the art of plasticsurgery will always speak louder than any words. © 2008, Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature and International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery.