I saw an article over at the Plastic Surgery Channel in which British doctors are spreading FUD (fear, uncertainty,doubt) about having plastic surgery abroad. The article says a recent survey of the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons showed an increase in patients who needed corrective work after having plastic surgery abroad. They listed the top five “problem” countries and Thailand was on their list.

The increase in patients is obviously because of the dramatic increase in people going abroad for cosmetic procedures. That statement is useless and meant to mislead. Useful data would be what fraction of patients who have had cosmetic surgery abroad need followup care after returning home. Has that fraction increased or decreased over time? And is that fraction in fact less than the fraction of people who have problems after having procedures done in the UK – who wants to place a bet on that?

A lot of that article is based on criticizing the websites of the foreign hospitals for not having more details about of the procedures. That’s pretty weak, criticizing the hospitals based on a review of their websites. The information is available from many sources, including the hospitals themselves – just contact them if you don’t see what you are looking for. And contrary to the doctors’ statements, in person consultation is always required before any procedure is undertaken, at least here in Thailand. I wonder how the British hospitals’ websites compare. How would they stand up to this same ctique?

The last statement was “…the apparent lack of post-operative care leaves many patients from the UK needing extra help back home”. Are they really trying to assert that post-operative care is not available? Because of course it is available and it is wonderful, far better than you will get back in the UK. Now, some patients might decide they aren’t going to stick around for the post-op care and the hospital can’t force them. That’s hardly a valid criticism of foreign cosmetic surgery centers. Very weak, doctors, very weak.

Update: I saw another article, this one saying overseas procedure could be fatal. Oh my. The UK doctors must really be starting to panic. And a U.S. doctor made a comment on that post saying “you get what you pay for”. Oh really. Does he not follow the news about his profession, like the study that showed the U.S. ranks number one in cost but number 37 in quality of medical care?

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 6th, 2009 at 4:15 am and is filed under Medical Tourism News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.