Saturday, November 24, 2007

Patient Safety and the Media

I knew as soon as the media explosion of Dr. Jan Adams and Kanye West's mother took place that I would be inundated with phone calls from worried prospective patients. It is very difficult for the lay public to decipher the truth about professionals' credentials especially when the media itself does not care enough to find out important details such as training and true certification. The general feeling is that certification among surgeons is just a "turf battle" between equally qualified professionals. Nothing could be further from the truth. The word "plastic" should be reserved for use by people trained in the field of plastic surgery. It should not be used as a general term describing everybody who wishes to be called a plastic surgeon. The media is to blame for helping propagate the misconception that everybody is a plastic surgeon. This is not so, and IT IS A MATTER OF PUBLIC SAFETY.

posted by Dr_Goldstein at 9:08 AM 0 comments