We live in an age when social media tells us we can and should be beautiful forever. Unfortunately, nature has other ideas. As one wag famously said, “Gravity always wins.”
Plastic surgery comes in two primary flavors. The first is reconstructive surgery necessitated by some event, illness or trauma. The second is elective cosmetic surgery. There is a great difference between the two, especially in the way they are treated in court.
Surgery, elective or not, always involves a host of possible problems. Surgical errors are among the most common forms of medical malpractice. Surgical errors can involve surgery on the wrong area, surgery on the wrong patient, wrong procedure performed, anesthesia issues, infection, and failure to give proper post-operative care. All of these surgical problems can and do occur in plastic surgery. They are aggravated by the fact that doctors with little training or skill in plastic surgery see the money that can be made and hold themselves out as plastic surgeons. Surprisingly, there is nothing to stop any doctor, surgically-trained or not, from calling herself a plastic surgeon and opening up for business.
Cosmetic plastic surgery procedures have all of the usual surgical problems and then a few more that are specific to cosmetic surgery. The most significant of these is that the patient undergoing an elective cosmetic procedure is expecting a certain cosmetic result. That expectation may or may not be a reasonable one. An average looking person who wants the surgeon to make them look like the latest male or female hunk is likely to be disappointed. It is often said that beauty is in the eye of the beholder and that is certainly a true statement when it comes to cosmetic surgery. What most reasonable people might view as a successful cosmetic procedure may not be at all what the patient was expecting or hoping for. This is a field with great potential for disappointment and disappointment breeds litigation.
Another major problem which is peculiar to elective cosmetic procedures is that they are often performed on people who have already had significant cosmetic surgery. The first time a man or woman has cosmetic surgery, the results will likely be as predictable as they will ever be. The skin and the tissue beneath the skin have never been operated on before. They will behave in relatively predictable fashion. In the hands of a competent surgeon, the result should not be a horror show or a candidate for before and after pictures of plastic surgery gone bad.
The second or third time cosmetic surgery is performed in the same area, the tissue is no longer virgin and untouched. It has already been cut and manipulated. It has formed scar tissue. It is much more difficult to predict how the tissue will respond to the intended procedure. This is where the horror stories com from. The more times a man or woman goes under the knife for cosmetic surgery, the greater the likelihood things will not turn out well.
So why is there a difference in the law between elective cosmetic procedures. Actually, the law treats elective and non-elective cosmetic procedures the same. It is the jury that treats them differently. Juries know how much cosmetic surgery costs. They know insurance companies don’t pay for it. Juries know the patient did not need to have the procedure. They know the patient voluntarily assumed the risk of surgery so they could look better. They voluntarily took the chance that things would go wrong. They should not come to court and expect the jury to show them sympathy.
I have met with women who were unhappy with their cosmetic surgery result, and often with good reason. The surgeon made some mistake which resulted in injury to them. Often these women were still beautiful. I had to explain to them that, even with the injury they suffered, they would probably be better looking than almost every woman on the jury. There would not be any sympathy for them from the women on the jury.
There is no free lunch. Every cosmetic procedure presents a risk of failure of one sort or another. The more aggressive the procedure, the greater the risk. Repeat procedures present ever greater risks. If you are thinking about elective cosmetic surgery, keep these things in mind. If you decide to go forward, investigate the heck out of the credentials of the surgeon you entrust with your body.
The post Elective Plastic Surgery: A Difficult Case to Win appeared first on Sandweg & Ager PC.