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PLASTIC SURGERY NEWS, SURGERY NEWS, COSMETIC SURGERY NEWS Dcember 2004 NEWS  |
Plastic surgery patients: TV shows skip the risks
In a recent episode of "Extreme Makeover," plastic surgeon Garth Fisher gives a patient a pre-op examination.
ABC/Carol Kaelson
the risks:
Like all surgeries, plastic and cosmetic procedures carry some risks for
patients, experts say. Among the dangers:
• Infection
• Scarring
• Complications from anesthetic
• Blood loss
• After the procedure, patients may face bruising, swelling and pain.
Source: Enquirer research, American Society of Plastic Surgeons
Debbie Perkins wanted to look like herself, but younger. So she saw a plastic surgeon.
After a full face-lift and a nose job, she likes what she sees when she looks in the mirror: herself, but younger and with a slightly smaller nose.
"I wanted to look healthy and rested and just as nice as I could look," the Felicity woman says.
Perkins shakes her head when she sees ads for TV shows such as ABC's "Extreme Makeover" or Fox's "The Swan."
She doesn't know anyone who wants to come out of the operating room with a whole new face and body, she says.
Neither do most plastic surgeons, says Gene Ireland, a surgeon with the Plastic Surgery Group in Fairfax.
"I'd say maybe 30 percent of the time patients say, 'I'd like to look different,' " Ireland says. "The rest say they want to look more youthful or more rested or more alert."
Shows mislead
Ireland and other plastic surgeons say shows such as "The Swan," and E!'s "Dr. 90210" are misleading and even dangerous in the way they portray plastic and cosmetic surgical procedures.
"The biggest negative is the shows really minimize the risk of plastic surgery," Ireland says. "The surgery is real, and you get real benefits, and there are real risks. I don't recall that being a part of any little portion of any of these shows."
Perkins, 50, and Jodie Bender, 33, point out that the series don't show what patients go through after the surgery: bruising, swelling and pain that has to be endured while they heal, and the days - sometimes weeks - away from work and other routines.
Perkins' bruises lasted "probably a good five weeks," she says. "I was able to conceal them to where they were barely visible with makeup after probably three weeks."
Perkins and Bender, who lives in College Hill, both had their surgeries after gastric bypass surgery. Bender had excess skin removed from her sides, abdomen, hips, back and thighs in three surgeries after losing more than 170 pounds.
"The first surgery, there was a lot of pain and a lot of pain medicine while I was in the hospital," she says. In the second procedure, doctors made 12-inch incisions along her rib cage to remove skin.
One procedure at a time On shows like "Extreme Makeover," it's the norm for patients to have multiple procedures - face-lifts, tummy tucks, liposuction, breast implants and dental implants - at once.
That's rarely the way it works in real life, Ireland says. There are too many risks.
In reality, patients don't get to spend their days after surgery in a fancy hotel with a hairdresser and makeup artist, Bender says.
"I like to call (the shows) a re-do in an instant. They're trying to solve every problem someone has in an instant."
E-mail pofarrell@enquirer.com
