Social media and plastic surgery: A million followers don’t equal medical expertise—make sure you always check your doctor’s credentials!
Written by Mark Domanski, MD
“Are you not entertained?”
Social media wants you to keep looking at it, so it can sell ads. Social media algorithms figure out what keeps you on the platform. Algorithms promote content that make us angry, sad, mad, or excited. They do not verify fact or promote truth.
Want millions of Instagram followers, don’t be real – be engaging. Dance! A dancing surgeon is engaging… but how are their surgical results?
“Because you have seen me, you have believed.”
Before and after results are impressive. The most extreme results get promoted by the algorithm. The realistic results do not. Patients no longer expect realistic results; they desire what they “saw on social media.”
We must re-learn to believe in things we have not seen.
Engagement means creating an impression that is not reality. Engagement means demonstrating problems, and solutions to problems which are not real. When we try to implement those solutions, we will be disappointed. For example, aggressive liposuction without general anesthesia requires higher doses of lidocaine. We recently had a death in the DC area from lidocaine overdose. The algorithm does not understand lidocaine toxicity.
The End of Expertise
Board certification is not engaging. This is why lots of lucrative cosmetic surgeons are not trained in plastic surgery. A doctor with one year of primary care internship was hired by a company to perform liposuction – the algorithm does not care that she injured a patient’s liver and the patient died.
The algorithms encourage risks. A plastic surgeon in Ohio had lots of social media followers. Then her license was suspended by the medical board for not paying attention to her patient while she was live casting a surgery. But her performance was engaging for the algorithms.
A friend of mine told me about a “plastic surgeon” who has many Instagram followers and is “famous.” I checked https://www.certificationmatters.org. They are not a plastic surgeon. They were not even board certified by any medical board. Her response: “Sh*t.”
Social Media and Plastic Surgery–A Return to the Age of Faith
Medicine requires the establishment of fact, an evaluation of options, and then accountability for the chosen treatment. Social media provides none of that. Plastic surgery is worse off because of it.
Very Truly Yours,
