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Woman Wins Right to Criticize Surgeon on Website
Posted by
samzenpus
on Thu Feb 08, 2007 01:05 AM
from the tell-it-like-it-is dept.
from the tell-it-like-it-is dept.
Scoopy writes "The website of a cosmetic surgery patient critical of her Sacramento surgeon's work is protected free speech, an appeals court said in an opinion that could have statewide implications.
The website contains before and after photographs of 33-year-old Georgette Gilbert, who said the surgery left her with one eyebrow higher than the other and a surprised look permanently affixed to her face.
The website was challenged in a defamation suit filed by surgeon Jonathan Sykes, a prominent professor and television commentator on the subject of cosmetic surgery.
Although the Sacramento-based 3rd District Court of Appeal only mentions Sykes, the opinion suggests that others who use 'hot topics' of public interest in their advertisements and promotions may shed protections against defamation afforded to ordinary citizens."
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According to courtroom reporters... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:According to courtroom reporters... (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:According to courtroom reporters... (Score:5, Insightful)
Are you saying that under these circumstances one should expect a shitty job? What, does your depression somehow affect the surgeon?
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Re:According to courtroom reporters... (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:According to courtroom reporters... (Score:5, Insightful)
No matter how good he is, however, a bad result is always a possibility (even if remote). That this woman ended up on the short end of the stick still doesn't affect the validity of her tail -- if only as a warning of what really can go wrong if you're unlucky. I know one woman who is intensely ashamed of her breasts as a result of the side effects of augmentation surgery. She will no longer wear revealing clothing, because it's too likely to expose the scarring.
That's not the kind of information that you're likely to get in the advertising brochures, or the 'reality television' shows that ("incidently") highlight a different plastic surgeon every week.
Parent
Re:According to courtroom reporters... (Score:5, Insightful)
The difficulty here is whether or not she can complain about it - and I would say that she can, but not the way she has done.
Calling it a 'botch' implies that it was done badly. The only way to check this is to look at perhaps the last 1000 patients and see if his results are acceptable or not. Medical confidentiality would mean this would have to be done by internal audit, unless those patients volunteered (which would likely mean all the unhappy customers come forward, skewing results).
Maybe if she could prove he was drunk during the operation or something that would also qualify.
As it is, I think it is fair for her to put up before and after pictures, say who did the surgery, say that she is unhappy, and really do all sorts of free speech things that don't amount to libel.
What if he has the best results of any surgeon, ever, and this is the first 'poor' outcome? That hardly makes it a botch - just her more unlucky.
About 2% of medical negligence cases are found against the doctor. There are often a lot of emotional issues - and she has admitted to these.
I will assume that she also signed an informed consent document which listed all the possible adverse outcomes - such as disfigurement, scarring, infection, death, spontaneous combustion. Maybe she should have weighed up those small but significant risks beforehand a bit more.
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Re:According to courtroom reporters... (Score:5, Insightful)
As I already said, complications are a statistical fact regardless of whether the surgeon makes mistakes or not.
If he did the surgery expertly, and the poor outcome was for reasons other than what was in his control - then that's simply not his fault.
This has no comparison to driving. This is accepted medical fact, studied at length by a great number of researchers, with consistent findings of rates of infection in a number of circumstances.
If she had died unexpectedly as a result of the anaesthetic - statistically a 1 in 250 000 chance - then that's out of his control.
If she had a post-operative infection - for this surgery about a 2-5% rate could be expected (I would expect her to be closer to the 2%) - then as long as he has followed accepted practice (aseptic technique, good wound closure, not too heavy on the diathermy, good haemostasis, a few others) - then again, this is a statistical fact.
If we find that he has a 20% infection rate compared to his peers, who have a similar case load and all have a 2% infection rate - then we can raise issues of incompetence.
This is long established. Ultimately, I also have no idea whether he was at fault or not - all I am saying is that sometimes, despite the best will and ability in the world, the outcomes are not ideal, and this is what needs to be established before accusing him of anything.
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Re:According to courtroom reporters... (Score:5, Funny)
He added a tail too? No wonder she is pissed.
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Link to the website (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Link to the website (Score:5, Interesting)
Also, TFA is reg-required (Do I really want to spend x minutes signing up & agreeing to God know what on a paper I'll never read again?). So, for your reading pleasure the story from metnews [metnews.com].
Lastly, shouldn't that headline read: Woman's Right to Criticize Surgeon on Website upheld
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Re:Link to the website (Score:4, Interesting)
The Sacramento Bee has the headline, "Woman wins right to attack her plastic surgeon on the Web".
Attack? What the hell?
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Re:Link to the website (Score:5, Insightful)
But I guess we can't have that, now can we? It might be bad for business.
To be honest I don't even see how this case went to trial. How can we claim to have freedom of speech if you can't even complain about somebody doing a poor job? If she had knowingly made a factually false claim, then I could see it.
Parent
WTF (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:WTF (Score:5, Informative)
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For those who do not want to register (Score:5, Informative)
Title Correction: (Score:5, Insightful)
Why surgery in the first place? (Score:4, Insightful)
That said, it's great that we have plastic surgery for patients with actual disfigurements.
Reconstructive Surgery NOT Benefitted. (Score:5, Interesting)
My experience is that reconstructive surgery is deteriorating. Plastic surgeons are now learning to do cosmetic procedures, rather than reconstructive. I have a genetic defect with my eyelids, and had three surgeries as a child. Now decades later, I could use additionaladvanced reconstructive surgery to give my eyes a more reasonable appearance.
Eyes are very important to our facial expressions, and although my friends think I look lovely, strangers sometimes do an unpleasant double-take when they see me.
So I wanted to give it another shot, figuring reconstruction has improved since I was a poor child receiving free care.
The Stanford geneticist recommended a Stanford specialist and I went to see him. The waiting room was filled with literature about "eye lifts" for regular, aging people. I consult with the doctor (and I secretly recorded the conversation) and he did his utmost best to talk me out of any surgery at all. I could tell he was floundering.
I provided him records of what had been done, and suggested w2hat could be done, and made clear that I was not expecting miracles, just a slight improvement would be worth it.
He called in his senior, and they spent the next four minutes trying to pass the buck and make the other person do the surgery. The way we left it, was they were going to "contact my insurance" and I never heard back, despite sevferal phone calls.
These were Stanford Medical Center professionals, recommended by the geneticist who deals with birth defects, and THEY only wanted to do normal eyelid lifts. I was so disheartened, I never tried again.
GRR.
IMO way too fscking much money is spent on frivolous surgery.
My story, and I'm too tired to be concise so I'll just... submit it.
Parent
Silly, silly girl (Score:4, Insightful)
You'd think Michael Jackson would be enough of a deterrent for most people, but I guess you can never underestimate the power of low self-esteem.
Patient's privacy? (Score:5, Interesting)
I firmly believe that a patient should have the right to critisize their doctor, but I also believe the doctors should have the ablitly to defend themselves. I'd have liked to have seen part of a ruling that said they were no longer required to keep confidentiality for that particular patient.
If the doctor is not in a position to put up a web site, with pictures and inimate details of a patient who's gone public, then that person should be refrained from going public. Since that's pretty hard to enforce retroactively the only recourse seems to view the patient's public proclamations as relinquishing all privacy rights with respect to the doctor or hospital involved.
The surgeon may have a point... (Score:5, Insightful)
- One photo being done in a natural setting, one artificial.
- One photo with a happy expression, one without
- One photo with good lighting, one with very stark.
- One photo with makeup, one without
Some of this is related, but look. She insists one eyebrow is higher than the other and she is left with a permanent "surpised" look. This is quite possible, the eyebrow position can give that look, but raising the eyebrows would not have a significant effect on how wide her eye lids are open. Notice in the second photo she exadgerates her "surpised" look by opening her eyes as wide as possible. Add to that the camera in the before photo is slightly above her, and the angle difference adds to the effect. She is smiling in the first photo, which tends to close the eyelids a little and adjusts the eyebrow position.
The makeup makes quite a difference to shading, and the after photo is in much more stark contrast, which elimates facial details.
Also remember that the woman has filed a malpractice suit and stands to gain financially from seeming to look badly now.
However the court ruled, I think the surgeon had a point.
Re:The surgeon may have a point... (Score:5, Interesting)
The pic looks fake.
Parent
Re:The surgeon may have a point... (Score:5, Insightful)
The entire point of make-up being to hide imperfections, it is unlikely that she would have a "before" photo without make-up, especially if she had low self-esteem about her looks. If she had such a clinical "before" photo of her own, there would be plenty of people arguing that it was proof of premeditation to sue the doctor.
If she were to wear make-up in the "after" photo it would also mitigate the effects of the surgically created imperfections which would not help her point at all, she wants to demonstrate the problem, not cover it up. Also, one of the reasons women get such work done in the first place is to reduce their perceived need to wear make-up, so if the surgery had gone well, she would not be wearing as much make-up as she had been before the surgery.
Similarly it is unlikely that she would have a "before" photo that wasn't happy, people don't like to take pictures of unhappy times in their lives. You can't expect her to pose for an "after" photo and look happy - she's taking the photo specifically because she is unhappy, it would be ridiculous to expect her to be all smiles about it. Because she feels extremely unhappy with her new looks taking a picture, even in an attempt to get restitution or correction, is going to be an unpleasant experience for her.
Camera and angle and lighting are much more likely to be the result of the amateur nature of both photos than any sort of explicit plan to manipulate the viewer.
So, while I agree that her presentation is not necessarily evenhanded, I really doubt that it was calculated. At the very worst, she probably picked one of her better looking "before" pics and one of her worst "after" pics, but that's no different from a plastic surgeon who does the reverse in his marketing materials.
Parent
Really? (Score:5, Funny)
Other side effect (Score:5, Funny)