By Dr Sam Cunneen
(FRACS, Specialist Plastic Surgeon)
“Specialist plastic surgeons have had training through the College of Surgeons for many years. They generally have associations with lots of regulatory bodies which maintain standards. There’s usually a large amount of educational material and colleagues to help with difficult cases. Some have associations with public hospitals, which give you access to the junior doctors who are constantly challenging you and forcing you to continue to educate yourself. I think that cosmetic surgeons or the cosmetic doctors and the cosmetic tourism has done an awesome job at forcing plastic surgeons to wake up and stop ripping patients off. There are all sorts of bizarre jobs that they’ve done, but I think people were being price gouged before these guys came out. I’m from Perth, Perth’s a little town. There was nowhere else for people to go if they wanted a breast augment, and so surgeons were able to decide whatever they want. Now that there’s a competitive market out there, if surgeons are being unrealistic with the prices they charge, people will go somewhere else, to less safe places, and can have some strange results. So, I think they’ve served a purpose.”
