Cosmetic Surgeons Must Interpret Industry Claims

I feel so good when I can tell a patient that I have a technology or a procedure ideally suited to that person’s needs and that it is faster to perform, faster to heal, less invasive, less painful and provides results even one’s own mother could not detect. I think all physicians feel that way. Unfortunately, in our quest to please patients, to become well known in our community, to toy with fame and fortune, each of us without exception begins to believe our own hype. The old adage “if you haven’t experienced a certain complication you haven’t done enough cases”, is certainly true.

How often do physicians listen to the hype of speakers touting new products at meetings? Perhaps they say a new product improves skin tone. Has anyone ever seen skin tone, touched skin tone, read a definition of skin tone, measured skin tone? How often has the public seen a demonstration on television of a patient undergoing a procedure like radiofrequency skin tightening in perfect comfort smiling to the cameras and Oprahesque audiences? Does anyone have an inkling that the patient on the Today Show a day after a thread lift was bruised and swollen but was professionally made up? Am I the only physician who has seen persistent post inflammatory pigmentation with fractional lasers (performed by another physician of course!)?

Now that Contour Threads have been removed from the market have any physicians had patients with post thread-lift migraine headaches, parasthesia, neuropraxias, granulomas, abscesses, and retracted scarring? I have. Smart lipo is introducing a faster stronger laser to “tighten skin”. Has anyone seen a controlled study of skin retraction demonstrated by contraction of two tattoos placed in the skin before the procedure? Did its creators bother to look at the perils of ultrasonic assisted liposuction in the 1990’s before they touted their new technology at even higher levels of heat production?

At the 2008 annual meeting of the American Academy of Cosmetic Surgery we will have a panel program of technology that was introduced in the past 3-5 years and what has been the outcome. I urge all interested physicians to attend and I await the response of the public.

Cosmetic surgeons are the purveyors of new technology. We are the educators of the public. We are the organs of trust in the provision and dissemination of information to our patients. We are not the fools of the cosmetic’s industry unless we choose to be. We must ask the same questions as the public and disseminate the answers.

The Future is Today

Wow! So much has been happening at MetropolitanMD I can't wait to update our readers and our patients on our evolution as well as the exciting developments in the field of cosmetic surgery. We are expanding our use of non-invasive technologies and our esthetician Barbara Arnoux is expanding her services to include body peels and LED light therapy for rejuvenating skin. In addition to our Obagi line we are using Bioelements Probiotics to enhance skin wellness and have been having more success with low level lasers to treat scars and unwanted pigmentation.
We are soon going to redesign our home page for our website and this blog will henceforth be on the home page. Dr. John Rachel, my good friend and colleague will be contributing to this blog site and we hope you will feel free to add your comments by e-mail or phone to the ideas we present.
Our project of creating a multidisciplinary cosmetic surgery center where patients can rely on the best in care and cosmetic surgery as well as a place to ask questions and get reliable advice has advanced very far in the past 18 months. I am most grateful to all of you who have supported us. I will be going on vacation for 2 weeks to the sunny ports in Rome and Southern France and when I return I am excited at the prospects of how we can interact to promote healthy skin, mind, and body.