How Real People Make Decisions About Cosmetic Surgery

When people fire off darts objecting to women who choose to have cosmetic surgery they really let their ignorance shine through. The personal decision to choose a surgical procedure to these “plastic surgery bashers” is impulsive, harmful, and demeaning to women. Well, I say, limiting what a woman chooses to do because it doesn’t fit your personal morals is just as demeaning and harmful, and it is a revelation of just how uptight these people probably are about their own bodies. And it is rarely an impulsive decision as I will show you soon. Thank God in America we can make our own choices.

Surveys have revealed that the decision to have an elective surgical procedure is anything but rapid or quick or impulsive. When I get my patients talking about it they will confirm what I and many other surgeons have known for a long time. Most of people who chosse surgery have given this decision a lot of thought for years, not months. How many years? How about at least five or six. Or a whole lot more. Many will tell me they’ve dreamed about it ever since puberty when they realized they didn’t get the same kind of body or face that their sisters and friends did. Or that they love their kids but hate what pregnancy did to their body a few years ago (or even more than a decade ago.)

The phases of decision making take place over the course of many years for most people and they go something like this:

I call the first phase, “Coming to grips with it.” This is when my patients look at themselves in the mirror and realize they want to change what they see. They finally get over that little mental hurdle, the nagging inside that says “leave well enough alone.” Once they let their inner selves open up to the possibilities, once they surrender to their own desire to get on with making a personal change, once they open the door to this part of the brain that allows the freedom for the rest of the brain to explore, that’s when the research starts.

The second phase, “Researching it,” can last just as long as the first, or for some, it can take place quite quickly. It all depends on that person’s own personal style of getting enough information to seal the deal. This is the research phase. For women in a relationship they can clearly recognize the same phase in their husbands or boyfriends, it’s just a different object, like a new flat panel TV or a new car, not a cosmetic surgery. In this phase I get the sense that women and men are not that different.

The research phase really takes on two separate aspects that run simultaneously. It involves personal contacts but for more and more patients, it also involves the Web. Of course if you want to do your research confidentially, some women skip the contacts part altogether.

Knowing someone or meeting someone who has “gone under the knife” goes a long ways to personal acceptance of the possibility for yourself. Even if their result may not be what you want, just being able to discuss what it was really like, and finding out that they too thought about it for a long time, is really important. It is confirmation that it is okay to dream. And maybe even that it was a lot easier than you might think. For guys in the research phase of buying a car or TV it is talking to someone who owns one, or knows someone who owns one. They chew it over with a beer at the game or the bar. Women do essentially this same networking but are genetically just a whole lot better at it, I think.

So I call this first part of the research phase the “Asking around phase.” This involves talking it over with people who really matter in your life. Like your personal physician, your older sister, or maybe an old friend you haven’t talked to in a while. Even if they give an objection or two, or try to talk you out of it, it just adds the seeds to thinking about it more and more. It fuels the inner debate, even if it prolongs the decision. But many times it confirms the feeling that it’s alright to proceed onto the next phase, the internet search.

Very few of my new patients come in for their first consultation without having spent time doing their homework about plastic surgery on the web. You’re doing it right now by reading this blog. Like the first phase of the decision making process this one can also go on for a long time, even years. Or for some it is just a quick phase, an absolute last minute task since they have already decided to “go for it” and they just want to know a few more facts. That means the second part of the research phase has to be called
“Gotta go the web,” phase

And here’s the really interesting part of my business. I have found that there are really just two kinds of patients who get to this point in their quest for cosmetic surgery. Those who admit to having spent less than fifty hours or so on the internet researching it, and those who admit they have spent possibly “hundreds” of hours studying plastic surgery.
If there is a significant other in the exam room when I ask about this phase that person is quite often smiling or even laughing as my new patient admits they are a web junkie on this subject.

This phase is also the hardest part because it involves finding the right doctor, if you didn’t get a referral about one from a friend or a relative. That’s where my website comes in. The last few years for me have been very revealing. Up until about 2001 or so, more than half of my patients wanted me to tell them more about myself, my training or my Board Certification. Now however, it is altogether very different. I still ask everyone if they want to know more about me during that initial consultation. I used to be shocked at the following answer, even a little unnerved by what comes next. But the answer is now so common I have gotten over it. The overwhelming majority of women and men when I ask if they want me to tell them anything more about myself will say, “No thanks. I’ve already found out everything I need to know about you from the Web.” Like I said, I’ve gotten over it. Google has changed my life forever.

So the last phase, Signing up for it, unlike the first phases, takes place for most people really fast. Once they meet me, once thy see what the costs will be, the decisions have pretty much all been made. The big one, when to do it, means matching the recovery process to their schedule and just plain finding the right time.

So this may all seem very familiar to many people who read this. It is not a quickie impulsive decision for most patients. It is getting much easier to get the facts, especially with the internet loaded with endless pages of information (and mis-information, sadly.)
More people than ever have had cosmetic surgery so there are more opportunities to talk to someone who experienced it. And surgeons like me always like to talk about what it can do for you if you are the right person to go on to surgery.

Seattle Plastic Surgeon - Dr. Phil Haeck