Cosmetic Surgery: Blurring the Ethical Line

“After the surgery I had a sinking feeling as I realized I was still me and I wasn’t prettier,” (Campbell). Rhinoplasty, Breast Augmentation and Liposuction are just three medical procedures that plastic surgeons use to improve the lives of their patients. However, you may better know them by their casual titles: the nose job, boob job and tummy tuck. People all over the world are going under the knife to change their appearance. At first plastic surgery was used to improve the health and appearance of people with deformations, now people are demanding new appearances based solely on vanity reasons. They want to enlarge their breasts and fix their unshapely noses. People are tired of feeling fat so they decide to get it sucked out, but are they really considering why they are making these decisions and if it is even worth the risk that every surgery brings? Plastic surgery should not be conducted for cosmetic reasons because it can encourage doctors to be unethical, it comes with severe health risks and it may be a cover up for underlying insecurities.

The idea of cosmetic surgery is honestly very innocent and over 20 million procedures were conducted just last year (ISAPS). Most every person has something they’d like to change about themselves and cosmetic surgery can make that idea into reality. The goal is to enhance beauty and improve self-esteem so that our lives aren’t plagued by our imperfections. Using plastic surgery for health reasons is ethical and needed. Breast reduction can have a major positive effect on patients that struggle with back problems due to large breasts. Rhinoplasty can be necessary and help patients’ breathe normally and plastic surgery can reconstruct deformities that can change the lives of people for the better.

Cosmetic surgery may have a positive effect on patients but may not be worth the risk. The demand for cosmetic procedures can encourage doctors to be unethical in their practices. Patients seek cheap procedures and find them all around the world even though these practices may not be legitimate. Most of these surgeons aren’t board certified. Board certification means that a doctor is practicing procedures he or she is qualified to do. Angelo Cuzalina, an American Academy of Cosmetic Surgery President, estimates that 50,000 to 100,000 doctors that are doing cosmetic surgery aren’t board-certified plastic surgeons. (O’Donnell 3). Some even say that performing cosmetic surgery violates the Hippocratic oath [taken by medical doctors] because it carries a potential for harm without curing or preventing disease (Edmonds 2). These doctors offer discounted prices because patients are put under local anesthesia rather than intravenous sedation or general anesthesia. Many patients have lost their lives because these doctors are not skilled or qualified in plastic surgery procedures. A woman named Kellee Lee Howard received minimally invasive liposuction from a clinic that wasn’t board certified. “James Howard woke up on Valentines day 2010 to find his wife lying dead on the living room couch.” Lee-Howard died of an overdose of the painkiller lidocane from complications after elective cosmetic surgery because her surgeon wasn’t educated on the proper anesthesia dosage (O’Donnell 2-5). Her life was ended because a doctor was not trained or qualified to do her surgery. He abused his title and manipulated a mother of six children into a cheap procedure that led to her death. Cosmetic surgery can’t be ethical if it persuades healers to take advantage of insecurities.

Plastic surgery encourages doctors to be unethical but also presents severe health risks. A housekeeper and mother of two, Maria Shortall, died of cardiac arrest after a liposuction and a fat transfer procedure. Kellee Lee Howard died from a lidocane overdose after a liposuction (O’Donnell). Lisa Espinosa contracted a severe virulent infection after a breast augmentation surgery, a tummy tuck and liposuction from a makeshift operating room in the Dominican Republic. Espinosa had extensive damage to her breasts including the removal of a healthy gland, severed nerves, multiple stitches embedded in the breast tissue, incorrect placement of her nipples and the results of an infection due to the use of unhygienic instrument. She had to go through three reconstructive surgeries to repair the damage from the first. It took her more than four years to completely recover. Doctors have reported life-threatening infections resulting in amputation, massive body cavities, breast deformity and misalignment damaged or severed nerves, scarring and facial immobility caused by cosmetic surgery. (Campbell 1). All these women are paying even more money to reconstruct their botched surgeries and some women didn’t even get the chance. Is a new nose worth a life? Is getting skinny quick worth a spouse and children finding the dead body of a loved one on the couch the next morning (O’Donnell)? Are larger breasts worth the severe pain and disfigurement of a cheap surgery? Is the chance at a new look worth someone’s future?

Knowing the severe risks that come with surgery, people, primarily women, are still looking to change the way they look. The opposition calls it “enhancing beauty” but is it a quick fix for an underlying psychological issue? Kate Dobinson was 11 when she realized that she wasn’t perfect. A little boy in her class mentioned something about the bump on her nose and it forever changed how she saw herself. It became an obsession and severe insecurity. When she was 21 she decided to go the surgical route and get a nose job. “After the surgery I had a sinking feeling as I realized I was still me and I wasn’t prettier,” (Wilcox). Kate realized that reconstructing her face just opened her eyes to the emotional and mental problems she was facing. It took her a while to accept her new nose and understand her insecurities. When someone looks at his or herself in the mirror and doesn’t like what they see it is usually a deeper-rooted problem they have with themselves? It needs to be addressed as a self-esteem problem before a surgery. Teens are also looking for surgery to make them feel better about themselves. In 2005 the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery counted 209,000 procedures for kids 18 and under (Collins). Teens are coming in with unrealistic expectations in hopes of changing their appearance to better fit in or feel better about themselves. “‘It’s important to understand the motivation behind the desire to have a cosmetic procedure, as you are often your own worst critic,’ said Dr. Daniel Bober, a psychiatrist and assistant clinical professor at Yale. ‘The magnitude of the visible cosmetic concern and the expressed emotional distress associated with it can sometimes rise to the level of a mental illness if it affects your daily functioning,’” (Collins). Many are trying to fix something that isn’t going to go away with a cosmetic procedure and often doesn’t go away after the procedure is finished.

These are just some cases of American woman. Plastic surgery is something that people all over the country deal with. South Korea has the most plastic surgery operations per capita in the world with over 356,000 procedures per year (Asian Plastic Surgery). The leading procedure conducted throughout the world is eyelid surgery with 1,427,451 procedures. South Korea preforms 107,712 of those operations (ISAPS). In some parts of the world altering your appearance is an expected social norm. Seoul, South Korea is considered the plastic surgery capital of the world. In Seoul there is a quarter of the city dedicated to improving ones physiognomy. With posters throughout the city encouraging people to reshape their face to look like someone else (Marx).

“The walls of the stations are plastered with giant ads for plastic-surgery clinics, many picturing twinkly cheerleader types, sometimes wearing jeweled tiaras and sleeveless party dresses, and often standing next to former versions of themselves (‘before’ pictures)—dour wallflowers with droopy eyes, low-bridged noses, and jawlines shaped like C-clamps. ‘This is the reason celebrities are confident even without their makeup,’ one caption read. ‘Everyone but you has done it,’ another said.” (Marx).

Cosmetic surgery is unethical because it can persuade doctors to be dishonest in their practices, can have severe health effects, and can sweep psychological problems under the rug. Doctors worldwide are taking advantage of the insecurities of others and conducting procedures they are not qualified to do. Patients are seeing severe damage from surgeries they received by these unqualified doctors. Cosmetic surgery also covers up mental illness and insecurities. People are feeling the pressure to look a certain way everywhere but our goal needs to be teaching people to love exactly who they are. Cosmetic surgery is a cowardice way to cover up what is really wrong with oneself and not worth the horrific damage and unethical lies preformed. Love who you are and exactly what you were born with because changing what you look like isn’t worth the risk.

Works Cited

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