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Truth vs Marketing in the
World of Plastic Surgery
Let me be honest with you. When it comes to marketing, I'm pretty cautious. When I first came into practice, it was really on the cusp that professionals like lawyers or doctors would even consider advertising. It wasn't considered professional. Professional in this sense means ethical and truthful, terms too loosely regarded in the world of marketing.
I am a highly-skilled general surgeon. Building on that foundation I later specialized in cosmetic and reconstructive surgery. That depth of experience and training matured me into a superb plastic surgeon. I don't like to feel that I am competing to take care of people, or competing to provide professional service or competing to provide ethical service. Even so, I accept the fact that cosmetic surgery is elective. People choose to have cosmetic surgery because they want to, not because they are in need of the procedure. They are investing their discretionary income in a free market we're marketing and the media are huge influences. So if I am entering this arena, I want to do so in a balanced way. I try to help people get to the truth behind the media-hype and make the best decisions for their health, appearance and well being.
I think it's important for patients to be informed correctly, because they're not. By and large, there is little truth in the advertising they've been presented. It's as if some manufactures and marketing-happy doctors will say whatever it takes to sell something, regardless of the quality. That's not professional. The cosmetic industry moguls are masters at making a product or procedure look pretty, flashy, sexy- because they know that is what sells? and it does sell. Which would be perfectly fine except they're often selling products that have no foundation in science, or facts for that matter.
Many publications including radio and television, like to market the 'latest and greatest' thing. That's actually an oxymoron, because the newest things are always the least proven. What makes us able to understand if something is good or not is how something performs over time. If it's brand new and just entering the market, basically, those are experimental therapies. There's no place for that approach in my practice. We are talking about people's bodies and their lives, not whimsical fashion.
The media is constantly in a profit-driven race to get the latest information, the newest thing. They will talk to the person who's developing a new product or procedure, who in turn sells it as, "Wow, you just can believe how well this works." Well, how many cases have you done over what period of time? Those are important questions.
People looking into having any type of plastic surgery should not have to figure out what's hype and what's good medicine on their own. They need to have contact with a person that knows the field, has experience in the field, and significant training. Someone who can look at what is going on, understand the new techniques and machines that are being developed, understand the motivations and effectiveness of what's being developed, and what kind of outcomes can be expected over what period of time.
There are a lot of people in Santa Fe who offer certain types of plastic surgery or skin care, but don't have sufficient background to make these discriminations. These are not plastic or reconstructive surgeons, but practitioners that come from a completely different field, dentists, pediatricians, family practitioners, ob/gyns. They attend a few clinics or seminars, many times put on by people who are selling the products or machines they are using, and the doctors are taken in by them. The people putting on the clinics have an interest in selling the technology, so they are not what you would call 'independent observers.' In the world of medical research that's complete no no. You don't what to read a paper by someone who owns the company, that's a classic fox in the henhouse scenario. Unfortunately, some practitioners don't have enough experience in the field to understand the difference.
I can hardly emphasize it enough: this is medicine, this is science. We can only perform our calling effectively with objective, impartial, and well-proven data. We are professionals entrusted with the most vulnerable and precious aspects of humanity, their health. Doctors have no business misleading or mistreating patients in a selfish desire for profit. I don't want to do that. So I think what I would like to say is, I'm here, I'm exceptionally well qualified to talk about these things. Together we can make the right decisions to get the best results.
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 James Green, MD | Plastic Surgery, Santa Fe | Phone (505) 988 2215
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