Clinical risk in aesthetic surgery

Mercer, Nigel

doi:10.1258/cr.2009.090043

Cited by 9 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 7 publications

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“…Indeed, such surgery has now become so profoundly and explicitly commodified that the ex‐president of BAAPS, Nigel Mercer, compared the growth of the industry to a modern gold‐rush founded on human vanity and the search for eternal youth, noting that ‘today's prospectors are surgeons, not miners, and the lives they risk are not their own but those of their mostly female clients, lured with impossible promises of anatomical perfection’ (). He observed that ‘We have reached a stage where public expectation, driven by media hype and, dare one say, professional greed, has brought us to a “perfect storm” in the cosmetic surgical market’ ().…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Buying and Selling Breasts: Cosmetic Surgery, Beauty Treatments and Risk

Taylor

2012

The Sociological Review

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This paper is concerned with the ways in which women are sold cosmetic surgery, and how they ‘make sense of’ their own participation in this market. It draws on ongoing ethnographic research to explore how a group of young women who have paid for breast augmentation surgery narrate their decision to undergo surgery, the choices they make as consumers of cosmetic surgery, and their experience of having surgery. These narratives are compared with the ways in which breast augmentation surgery is sold to them by the companies and medical professionals involved in the rapidly expanding market for breast augmentation surgery. The paper shows how this particular group of young white working‐class women shift between imagining the breast augmentation operation as a simple beauty treatment and recognizing it as medical surgery, and explores how this shapes their perceptions of the risks and benefits of buying new breasts. It also shows how those who market such procedures manage and manipulate perceptions of the process of breast augmentation surgery and the risks that attend on it in an effort to encourage this form of consumption.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Buying and Selling Breasts: Cosmetic Surgery, Beauty Treatments and Risk

Taylor

2012

The Sociological Review

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Ethical Aspects of Aesthetic Medicine

Wiesing

2011

Aesthetic Medicine

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A poor prognosis for autonomy: self-regulated cosmetic surgery in the United Kingdom

Latham¹

2010

Reproductive Health Matters

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In recent years, cosmetic surgery in the United Kingdom, which is provided almost entirely by the private sector, has gained in popularity despite evidence of its potential risks to patients. Over 32,000 procedures were reported by one association of cosmetic surgeons alone in 2007, three times more than in 2003. This article examines the regulation of cosmetic surgery in the UK, in light of the need for informed consent and the importance of patient autonomy. Since 2000, the government has attempted through legislation covering all health care provision to regulate cosmetic surgeons' qualifications, patient rights to information, and the inspection and registration of premises. However, the risk to patients from unregistered and poorly qualified surgeons, and from private clinics with a poor quality of care, has still not been adequately addressed. Moreover, ensuring informed consent and the maintenance of standards has been left to professional self-regulation. An independent, government-funded umbrella organisation with lay representation and sufficient powers of registration and inspection of all relevant cosmetic surgery practitioners is needed to fully protect patients, and should have its roots in specific legislation governing cosmetic surgery.

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Clinical risk in aesthetic surgery

Cited by 9 publications

References 7 publications

Buying and Selling Breasts: Cosmetic Surgery, Beauty Treatments and Risk

Buying and Selling Breasts: Cosmetic Surgery, Beauty Treatments and Risk

Ethical Aspects of Aesthetic Medicine

A poor prognosis for autonomy: self-regulated cosmetic surgery in the United Kingdom

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