This week, a Korean woman injected cooking oil into her face, presumably in a misguided effort to create an at-home substitute for finely developed dermal fillers like Radiesse® or Restylane®.
Far-out stories like this seem ridiculous in contrast to today’s highly-precise, minimally invasive facial enhancements which focus as much on skin health as they do on the “attraction factor” of the end result. At the same time, though, this kind of obsessive behavior underscores the need for cosmetic surgery information and advice resources like CS Chronicle, that go beyond procedure specifics and aim to help you understand the “big picture” of cosmetic surgery.
Here, some of the top surgeons in the country aim to help you figure out what is — or is not — right for you, to ensure that you develop reasonable and healthy goals for your body. Our surgeons have addressed these issues in articles ranging from bottom-line concerns like silicone implant safety to more complex issues such as how smoking affects surgical outcomes, the importance of a “minimalist” approach to facial enhancement, and how to know if you are emotionally ready for cosmetic surgery.
In the end, there may always be people who don’t take the appropriate steps to understand their procedure, or who fail to recognize that cosmetic surgery is meant mainly to correct and restore your shape in ways that help support (not substitute for) a healthy body image.
But hopefully, resources like this site can help minimize that number by helping patients develop healthier, more reasonable perspectives. This way, they will be better equipped to choose doctors they can trust to evaluate honestly whether their goals and motivations suggest surgery is in the best interests of their overall well being.
Stay healthy,
–The Cosmetic Surgery Chronicle Team
Related Articles:
- CS Chronicle surgeons’ perspectives on cosmetic surgery safety
- Is Your Surgeon Qualified to Perform Cosmetic Surgery Skillfully and Safely?
- “Am I Ready for Breast Enhancement?”: A Healthy Mental and Emotional Approach
- Revive Your Look — and Keep it Natural
- The Line between Elective and “Necessary” Enhancements
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January 14th, 2009 at 1:04 pm
Great article! Thank you for putting it together. Potential patients will be better served going with a service like The Patients Advantage (http://www.ThePatientsAdvantage.com). It’s a great way to find the best surgeons and it does not cost anything. I found them when searching for Breast Reduction surgeons. Check them out.
January 14th, 2009 at 1:59 pm
We definitely encourage anyone considering cosmetic surgery to take advantage of a wide variety of resources to inform themselves as fully as possible about their procedure — and their surgeon — before they go ahead with cosmetic surgery. Many of our contributing authors recommend that patients start with sites like the American Society of Plastic Surgeons Patient Resources to get a basic idea of their procedures before they move on to researching their surgeon specifically through directories.
At this point, patients often find it appropriate to expand their knowledge about that doctor’s experience and philosophy of care by meeting with other patients of his or hers, looking up recent articles by and about that surgeon, looking up any videos relating to his or her practice, and checking out his or her plastic surgery blog.
While none of these resources can guarantee a good choice of surgeon or a successful procedure, they all help patients equip themselves to make wise choices that will help them toward those results.