Having done cosmetic breast surgery for over 25 years I have seen everything at least once.
Yet this one thing about the industry that really gets to me.
Breast Augmentation Before and After Pictures
It has to do with the various before and after pictures. On my web site I just show pictures of before and after or will give complete information. This is not in any particular order nor do I put my best work up there that is all done perfectly with Photoshop , perfect lighting and great models. I just use my patients who sign a release, some are really outstanding others are run of the mill breast augmentation, if there is such a thing. Yet you get the idea. I don’t embellish my work so much. I am good at what I do, I know that , very few of my patients are unhappy, but like all plastic surgeons I do have a few ( a minority who like flys at a picnic, love to post ehow I am Dr. Evil on the internet) though that is a very small minority.
Day to day “irks”..
Yet what irks me is many surgeons, when they post their before and after photos carefully describe the size of the implants– “350cc above the muscle” type of thing. Its not that its wrong and I suppose “above the muscle ” can point to a certain look. Yet the killer to me is the cc’s or how large the fill volume is. Its not just that, but the fact there is no mention of height and weight or frame of the patient.
In other words, if you as a patient are looking around to see what you want and there is no indication to the size of the woman , height weight etc and they just indicate how much volume for the implant- what is the use? A 350 cc implant on a 5 foot 100 lb patient will look entirely different on a 5 ft 8 inch 150 lb patient with a large frame.
So I guess that is what irks me, is I have to deal with patients expectations that if they show me some case they like from the internet, it takes a while to explain that 350 cc will not look like that on them for example. This gets into the eye and art of cosmetic surgery, as I can look at the picture they like and judge looking at them how to give them that look, as to size and style of implant. Yet some patients fixate on the idea that since that is the look they want then they must have 350 cc !! There is no convincing them otherwise.
Well I don’t blame the patient as they come to me for advice and my opinion, I really blame the knucklehead doctors who either leave off essential data. If they don’t have a data like height and weight as the picture below , then that is perfectly fine as well. Maybe I am being a stubborn person, but almost by definition that is what is a “pet peeve”.
So a message to my peers, please make my life easier by either just showing the picture just the look or showing a picture with complete information not just the implant size.
As I said this is a personal blog not so much a professional journal , so before any other surgeons start to fire shots at me for saying this, consider its half tongue in cheek. Today I had such patient, finally I convinced her that the 500 cc implant may have looked small on the woman whose picture she had in hand , but on her it would look huge.
doctor808
Its the whole package that makes the difference.