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YouTube, Plastic Surgery, and the Ethics of Testimonials

June 29, 2008 by  

youtube, plastic surgery, plastic surgeons, dallas, texas

I read an article on Thursday morning that appeared in the New York Times about the use of YouTube to market a plastic surgery practice.  Most of you probably know that I use YouTube extensively to share with others about the nature of my practice including everything from virtual consultations to patient testimonials.  In the article, the reporter discussed the ethical issues with a lot of the testimonials that appear on YouTube as being paid or discounted by the doctor so that the patient would say glowing things about the physician.  Of course, I was deeply troubled by this and did some soul searching of my own.  Fortunately, almost every single testimonial you see on YouTube and on my site are unpaid, uncompensated, and undiscounted.  That lends obvious credibility to what the patient is saying.  However, I thought rigorously about any exceptions to this rule.  Sadly to say, yes.  In the effort of full disclosure, SOME of the patients that appeared on some local news stories were given discounts or outright free services.  Which ones?  The two Restylane stories that appeared on WFAA were given free services.  I truly don’t think that this fact decreases the integrity of the story since they were intended to be features on the injectables.  Nevertheless, I wanted to clear the air.  All my other news segments to the best of my recollection including my times on Good Morning Texas were from patients who paid in full.  

The other thing that I thought about seriously was my request for patients to film themselves immediately before I go into the operating suite like in my patient video diaries.  I now thinking about this fact feel that it was wrong to do it.  I may have caused undue pressure (unwittingly) from my patients before surgery to agree to filming simply because they might have felt that my performance would have been affected (It would definitely not have been as I truly love my patients and care only about results).  The language that I used was definitely very relaxed without any pressure.  Nevertheless, I shall ask my patients who consented to the two-second long pre-procedure video whether I made them feel uneasy.  If I did, I apologize.  From now on, no matter how important patient education is, I shall try my best to follow the strictest ethical guidelines that you deserve.  We are all imperfect souls, but the goal is to not make the same mistake twice and to live as ethically as we humanly can.

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