Would you let a man whose only dental qualifications were owning gloves and a power drill fiddle with your teeth? Probably not. Perhaps you’d be thrilled if your next doctor was a white-coated stranger with a medical license scribbled on the back of an old receipt? Doubtful. Nor would you have some unqualified surgeon cut you up next time you’re knife-needy.
Yet this is the reality facing thousands in this country, apparently. The news this week surfaced that thousands are going under the knife of unlicensed and unregulated plastic surgeons with little or no medical qualifications. Some non-scalpel procedures, such as ‘chemical peels’ (when someone’s outermost layer of face is burnt off with harsh chemicals, leaving the bright red softness of the underskin on the surface) are even being carried out by ‘nurses’ with no medical training at all.
Naturally, this leads to botched facelifts, wonky breasts and hilariously ironic scarring scar-removal procedures. Only now, it seems, after years of freely accessible cosmetic surgery (for a hefty fee), has someone raised the dangers of cowboy cutters.
This is the problem with modern society. Everything moves far too quickly. The internet was invented, popularised and made accessible to all more quickly than someone else could invent how to stop it being filled with piracy, fake pills and pornography. In much the same way, the personal surgery boom was never brought under proper control and regulation, and as such, it’s riddled with dangers.
I’m not worried, though. Surely, the way cosmetic surgery has evolved in our society is simply a form of natural selection at its finest. If you’re stupid enough to let any old knife-wielding smooth-talker make massive, irreversible changes to your body with sharp tools whilst you’re unconscious – and hand over a chunk of cash for the privilege – without so much as asking to see a medical license or some qualifications, you probably should be botched to the point of ugliness, your genes likely removed from the breeding pool of future generations in the process. Harsh? Definitely. But they don’t call it survival of the thickest.
The bottom line is, though, that we do need some form of regulatory body for cosmetic surgeons, and a greater degree of control over who can take people’s money and make bold promises about their body. Most surgeon-seekers are desperate and insecure, and some cutters are just conmen. Clearly, a change is needed.
Just don’t start regulating the internet as well. There needs to be some fun.
