Predatory Plastic: What a Real Doctor Does in the Face of Surgery Addiction
Feb 18, 2014
Every day, more and more stories appear in the media about surgery-addicted patients. From celebrity superfans to sufferers of body dysmorphic disorder (BDD), high-profile cases of people spending thousands to look like their ideal selves are emerging repeatedly. However, in each of these cases, the surgeons have failed in their basic duty to adequately assess their patients before operating.
Just last month, it was revealed that a 33-year-old Justin Bieber fan had spent over £60,000 trying to look like his idol. In a similar case, eighteen-year-old Ashley Horn underwent five procedures in a bid to emulate her “long lost” half-sister, Lindsay Lohan. Perhaps most notably, former glamour model Alicia Douvall has publically battled body dysmorphic disorder for many years, undergoing more than 300 procedures and spending over a million pounds on surgery.
Douvall recently compared plastic surgeons to “car salesmen”, claiming she was suffering from an addiction to surgery, but that none of her doctors tried to stop her from having more.
As in many of cases of obsessive, repeated surgery, Alicia’s doctors were focussing more on their patients’ money than their happiness and emotional wellbeing. At Austingraces, we believe in truly getting to know our patients, and carefully assessing their mental state, before we agree to perform surgery.
Offering an expert, personal service from the first consultation to post-treatment care, we try to ensure that our patients are not only content within themselves prior to surgery, but also content with the treatment we have given them. Surgery addiction and BDD are diseases, and if we failed to spot the warning signs, we would be seriously neglecting our duty to care for our patients both inside and out.
Call us today for a consultation on 08456 020 621