Cosmetic medicine and medical practice: what is the physician’s obligation?

• Published in: Medwave Vol. 12; no. 6; p. e5435
• Main Author: Novoa, Fernando
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English; Spanish
• Published: Medwave Estudios Limitada 01-07-2012
• Subjects: cosmetic medicine; ethics; informed consent
• ISSN: 0717-6384; 0717-6384
• DOI: 10.5867/medwave.2012.06.5435

Increasingly often, normal people ask their doctors for drug treatments or surgical interventions to modify various physical or mental aspects, under the idea that they constitute shortcomings. This type of request-based indication has been called "cosmetic medicine". Due to the magnitude, amount of resources allocated for these purposes, and the consequences that these interventions may entail for the patients, this new medical circumstance must be viewed as an important public health issue. It must be remembered that a clinician has no obligation to provide treatment upon request that is not medically indicated. Notwithstanding, it must be taken into account that the boundary between being ill or not, sometimes may be fuzzy even to medical experts. For this reason in some cases, the indication may be ethically acceptable. When the decision is made to indicate treatment under these circumstances, special precautions must be adopted. The decision must be shared between the physician and the patient-requester, who must be very well informed.