Only 17.8% of top plastic surgery-related Instagram posts are by board-certified plastic surgeons, according to a study by Northwestern University.
The study, published Wednesday in the Aesthetic Surgery Journal, looked at 21 plastic surgery-related hashtags (think: #boobjob, #brazilianbuttlift, #liposuction and #plasticsurgery). Researchers found otolaryngologists, dermatologists, general surgeons, gynecologists, family medicine physicians posts outranked board-certified plastic surgeons. Spas and salons were better at marketing cosmetic surgery than qualified surgeons.
"This is a very scary finding," Robert Dorfman, the first author of the study and a third-year medical student at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, said in a statement. "Providers — ranging from physicians who are not licensed in plastic surgery to dentists, hair salon employees and barbers — are doing procedures for which they do not have formal or extensive training. That's extremely dangerous for the patient."
Board-certified plastic surgeons are those with more than 6 years of surgical training (at least three specifically in plastic surgery).
This is the first peer-reviewed study that has quantitatively looked at plastic surgery-related posts on Instagram.
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