Today’s great doctors are part of a long tradition of physicians who have valued the art of medicine and married attention to the patient with rigorous medical investigation.
Some question whether plastic surgeons bear responsibility for promoting suspect norms of beauty, given that certain types of cosmetic enhancements reinforce common conceptions of normality that are harmful to society.
Physicians have an obligation to consider a patient’s quality of life when making treatment decisions and should consider giving patients the options of withholding or withdrawing aggressive treatment if that treatment will not restore the kind of life the patient finds meaningful.
A plastic surgeon criticizes reality television programs that focus on plastic surgery for their less-than-realistic depictions of cosmetic procedures and the profession as a whole.