Cosmetic and Plastic Surgery, what is the next evolution in terminology?
My name is Dr Les Blackstock and I have a passion for changing a person's wellbeing through the use of medicine and surgery. But how do I identify my professional interest?. I raise this question because of the obvious confusion that exisits in terminology in this field. The common terminologies have been "cosmetic surgery" or "plastic surgery". Recently the terms "cosmetic physician" and "appearance medicine practitioner" have emerged. Many of these terms, though some reflect ing levels of training and memberships of specialist training colleges, are often used mostly for "marketing" to attract people to have their surgery done by one person over another, or perpetuate a perceived barrier of entry of practitioners into fields where there are established people with interest to protect.
Choosing a surgeon to change your body shape
When you search for someone to help you with changing your body shape you will clearly see the marketing hype I have indicated. It is common practice to portray any one doctor as the "best", "expert", "world renowned", "leading practitioner", "pioneer in the field", or "has years of experience". I do not hold myself out to be any of those things. All I am is passionate about what I do and I am constantly trying to learn to be better. I believe that I am not alone and would like to encourage people to look beyond the "credentials" of any one person in making the choice about allowing someone to help them with their appearance.
"Trust", should be the key test for allowing someone to alter your appearance.
My philosophical position is that a persons psychological and physical well being can be strongly influenced by their distress, even if it may only be perceived to the individual, about the way they appear. I believe that most important factor in choosing who to help you, should be based on your trust in me as a person in addition to my skills as a surgeon. You can have a bad result from a good surgeon, the difference in the final outcome will be if you trust that the surgeon cares about you. l care. My guiding principal is to acheive a realistic body shape, as close as possible to a patient's desired body shape, with the least incisions. If I can not agree with you about what is realistically possible, then I won't do a procedure on you. I would hope that anyone in that situation then feels I have cared enough to have saved them from suffering false expectations from any procedure. Also, I hope that in my discussions during the consultation, I will have helped by bringing to your awareness the other options available.
Learn about me and what I may be able to do for you
I invite any one who has found this site by direction or search to read about me. I encourage you to tell others to do the same and link to this site. I would like to see a conceptual change towards "honesty" in this field and hope to lead by example. Finally, I hope that I also offer some insight into the advantages of the aesthetic outcomes from medicine.
