Cosmetic Surgery, Just Window Dressing?
One could not escape the news story today, that cosmetic surgeons are being placed under new restrictions as to how their private clinics are to be run. Patients must be fully informed of potential risks to procedures being undertaken. Additionally, inducements like “two for one” offers are to be stopped. Whilst there is no doubt, that for some cosmetic surgery can help people to gain a new lease on life and that in cases like mastectomies and physically traumatic incidents, cosmetic surgery can help patients to re-establish a sense of normality, which is good for not only their physical but also mental health.
However, having worked with issues like self esteem and confidence for more than a quarter of a century, I cannot help but ask myself if cosmetic surgery is somewhat like window dressing. By which I mean, does it serve to make people look good, but yet deep down, are people still lacking in self esteem and other issues which brought them to the surgeon’s knife in the first place. Would patients not be better served, if, as with gender reassignment, they go through counselling before the procedure to ensure that from an emotional and psychological perspective, they are making the right decision to have the surgery.
I am minded that no matter how a shop front looks, if the items in the shop are not as they should be then the shop will fail. Perhaps, this simple logic could be applied to the plethora of cosmetic procedures conducted each year in the UK.
