Should you find your cosmetic surgeon/injector on Insta/TikTok?
Spoiler: You should NOT.
So how useful is social media in the research phase of cosmetic work?
In my experience - not that useful.
There are 2 main categories:
Practitioners who use social media to promote their work - typically Instagram and TikTok
Online forums1 for people to chat about their cosmetic work experiences - typically Facebook, Reddit or sites like RealSelf.
Be aware that RealSelf is monetised by adverts by/for cosmetic practitioners.
Practitioners on social media
In my opinion2, you do not want a practitioner who is very active on Instagram or TikTok.
To have a significant social media following or presence, you need to be pretty concerned with said presence.
I do not want my practitioner to be distracted thinking about what trending audio they're going to stick on their latest reel.
Instead, I want my practitioner to be borderline obsessed with researching new practices and techniques that will push the boundaries of cosmetic work3.
They can outsource their social media, obviously, but even so, my feeling from having looked at hundreds of practitioners on Instagram4, is that endless Reels of them looming over their patients is no real indicator of the quality of their work.
You certainly do not want a practitioner who is in the habit of posting dramatic transformations. If their stock in trade is “OMG, SHE IS UNRECOGNISABLE!!!! 💉💉😍😍😍😍🔥🔥🤩🤩” then really think about whether that’s the outcome that you’re after.
Non-surgical practitioners
My current injectors have a social media presence, but it's largely educative My injector in the UK actually prioritises content showing the outcomes of medically necessary procedures - e.g. lancing boils and other delightful practices - rather than “Ooh, look at this lady who had wrinkles and now has no wrinkles”.
Surgeons/consultants
I have never been operated on by a surgeon with extensive social media presence and it’s not something I’m ever likely to do.
There are many surgeons - to whom I'm not going to give the oxygen of publicity - who are positively chomping at the bit to upload to Instagram and TikTok. Including one London-based chap who gives away a procedure every six months and then creates reels of the winners and losers.
These are not serious people.
You want the person operating on your face/body to be a Very Serious Person Indeed.
Someone who is quite sober, quite dull, and absolutely obsessed with the body part on which they operate.
As I say in this post, really you want them to be crushingly dull, because the thing that they need to care about most in life is the outcome of your nose, belly, foot arch, whatever.
Anyone that's all singing, all dancing and is “a bit of a character” is someone that I would advise you not to touch with a 10-foot pole in a surgical context.
When I first had surgery (2008), there was no Instagram.
Facebook existed, but we were all still in the very early days of ‘poking’ one another5 and it wasn't the advertising/disinformation juggernaut that it is now.
The surgeon whom I found then was a very quiet, unprepossessing chap who knew an enormous amount about noses (and ears and throats).
He's now retired, but if Instagram were available, there's no way he's doing a little dance around the operating theatre to Robert Palmer.6
The second - more significant in terms of your outcome - consideration is this:
Reputable surgeons do not need social media vindication for clout.
The clout that they get is from their peers, it is from the boards to which they are nominated, it is from the studies that they are asked to review, it is from the surgeries that they are asked to assist on, or to observe or critique.
These people, the people at the absolute top of their game, do not need to be telling you breathlessly every 20 seconds on social media how fantastic they are.
Before and after photos - back on my soapbox
You specifically don't want someone who is posting a lot of before and afters.
As I've written about here:
And here:
Other people's results don't really have any bearing on yours
The practitioner is never going to show you their bad before and afters, so it's kind of meaningless.
A lot of the practitioners who rely heavily on before and afters in their content are also heavily using filters. It's a gross practice.
Often, (not always) a procedure may be discounted or given for free to incentivise people to allow their images to be used.
Anyone who is having to drum up business by giving their service away is not someone you want to be seeing.
And finally… The Social Media Paradox
There are a finite number of hours in the day7.
For non-surgical treatments, your appointment will take between 30-90 mins, so your injector will only have around 6-10 available appointments a day.
If they don't already have 50 people a week going through the door through word of mouth, I'm not sure it's someone that you should be seeing.
The best cosmetic surgeons are only performing 1-4 operations a day, depending on their specialism. And they will have other commitments, as experts in their field, that mean that they won’t operate 5 days a week.
Your practitioner should be someone that you call up and their secretary tells you apologetically they can't fit you in for a month and a half. That's inconvenient, but that's the level you want to be at.
People who are aggressively promoting their services are generally not going to be the best in their field.
If someone keeps on advertising what they do and is looking for clicks, it's one of two things:
As above, they’re short of patients.
It's ego-based.
You don't want someone ego-based performing your cosmetic work.
There is a considerable risk that their priority is how they feel about your face/body rather than how you feel about your face/body.
Or, as above, they're more interested in the social media side of their work than the ‘making you smile when you look in the mirror’ side.
You want an injector that has time to sit and have a proper consultation with you, that they're not just jabbing 30 people a day in the same places and only taking 15 minutes per patient.
You want a surgeon who’s only operating a few days a week and who’s busy with consultations and research work the rest of the time.
There's no benefit to them of having 6-figure Instagram followers because they're never going to fit them all in for work.
If it's a clinic that is looking to educate people, then it's not quite as much of a red flag, but I still wouldn't say it's a reason to choose a practitioner or a practice.
My final wisdom of the day
A cosmetic practitioner’s social media presence is not a realistic indicator of what they can do for your face, body or wellbeing.
Obviously check the comments section, in case there's something egregious being called out8, but otherwise, there is no real usefulness to a social media account during the research phase.
If you’re wondering how you DO find someone, then - as ever - I’ve got you.
Laterz x
I know it’s fora. But it looked weird and overly formal, so forums it is.
Which, presumably, is why you’re here. Hi! x
Or inventing the full-body Profhilo alternative of my dreams.
Not a TikTok user. Although THIS GUY is an absolute festival of delight:
Again, I refuse to link to this shit, but THIS IS A REAL THING THAT HAPPENS.
If we accept that human beings operate on a linear time basis. Although time as we know it may only be psychologically real, rather than fundamentally real. For more on this, start here
By which I mean being called out for using faked photos or (grimly) allegations of sexual assault or malpractice - it’s ugly out there, kids. Take care 🖤.