Why is cosmetic surgery an ethical issue?

Ethical issues in cosmetic surgery can also conflict with the four principles of medical ethics. According to the principle of autonomy, it is necessary. In addition to these problems, the field of plastic surgery has common problems, such as the inability to establish a friendly relationship with the patient, obtaining informed consent, the inability to draw up the medical history, the lack of adequate diagnosis, the treatment of complications and the coping with false statements, that some experts may face all of these problems, 7 The ethical issues of cosmetic surgery can also conflict with the four principles of medical ethics, 16 According to the principle of autonomy, it is necessary to obtain the informed consent of adult patients freely by a qualified plastic surgeon before any surgery. Therefore, the plastic surgeon must provide sufficient information about the procedure, the type of surgery, its complications, alternative treatment methods, the costs and risks of the surgery that is understandable to each patient, 17 Because plastic surgery procedures in most cases are elective and are performed based on patient demands, doctors who do not prevent harmful surgeries will be incompatible with the principle of patient autonomy, 17. He found a relatively small proportion of articles in the plastic surgery literature focused on ethical issues. However, it is often assumed to have this effect to the extent that some public health-funded systems have funded cosmetic surgery in response to psychological distress.

Discussions about the ethics of cosmetic surgery tend to focus on whether cosmetic surgery is something that is morally justified. Nowadays, cosmetic surgery is becoming a profitable business, which deals exclusively with human appearance and less from the perspective of beauty, based on physical protests and taking into account factors such as sex, age and race. He also added that “the immense challenges posed by the media, consumer-oriented advertising, unspecialized opportunistic professionals and commercial interests are testing the traditional ethics with which plastic surgeons were trained. Ethical issues in plastic and reconstructive surgery usually involve informed consent, risk disclosure, and the role of values such as aesthetics and functioning in clinical decision-making.

Cosmetic surgery has an enormous difference from the general principle of legal responsibility in professional guidance, because the purpose of cosmetic surgery is different from that of common therapeutic purposes. This discussion would focus on the ethics of practices and would seek criteria to determine what surgeries could be morally justified, for example, those that return a person's appearance to normal and carry an acceptable level of risk. Despite the number of ethical problems faced by plastic surgeons, this systematic review found that a relatively small fraction of the plastic surgery literature has focused on ethical principles. Some cosmetic surgeries pose an exceptionally high risk, for example, buttock implants (for a graphic description of the risks, see pages 102-103 of Perfect Me), but other procedures have a relatively low risk and breast implants are considered routine surgery.

In addition to the desire for change and attractiveness, financial and economic factors are the main factors that contribute to encouraging people to opt for cosmetic surgery, since some jobs require access to a beautiful appearance and there is a tendency for people to perform cosmetic surgery.

Sylvia Cinnamon
Sylvia Cinnamon

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