Possibly unethical plastic surgery
A paper was submitted in which a plastic surgeon described what we thought was a very strange and unconventional operation. We asked the opinion of another plastic surgeon, who described the procedure as “very dangerous. ” He said that there was no consistent evidence that this operation could possibly work. The operation had been conducted in a private clinic, and we are sufficiently concerned that we are thinking of contacting the GMC. Are we doing the right thing?
- The GMC should not be informed.
- The author did send in several papers from the US where this procedure is being carried out, but there had been no randomised trials.
- Patients might not have been given the whole story—only told, for example, that it was successful in California.
- The editor would like to publish the whole case and ask for readers’ responses.
- The editor should write to the Special Advisory Committee on Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at the Royal College of Plastic Surgeons to get advice on this procedure.
The editor asked the original author for permission to publish something on their debate, but the request was declined. The editor now plans to raise the issue in a more general way. He did write to the British Association of Plastic Surgeons, but no action seems to have been taken.