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The purpose of this paper is to investigate how customer relationship marketing (CRM) activities are utilized by plastic surgery providers to encourage the sale of non-surgical cosmetic procedures (such as Botox). These procedures are considered to be an important gateway for future, more invasive (and profitable) services. As a result, the techniques used to build relationships with clients may be unethical, as they prioritize increased financial performance and profitability over customer well-being.

Conceptual models are presented that compare and contrast the CRM activities, mediators and expected outcomes for plastic surgery providers, motivated primarily by profit, with those primarily motivated by mutual betterment.

It is suggested that when accompanied by sales promotions, problem augmentation – an approach used by plastic surgeons to broaden the scope of a patient’s aesthetic problem to other areas of concern – may generate increased sales in the short term, but reduce the opportunity of positive word-of-mouth to recruit new clients.

This paper applies relationship marketing to a novel context to demonstrate how practices to retain and improve clients may harm their well-being and commoditize the service, unless mutual betterment is a key objective.

There is an increasing need for a better understanding of healthcare service marketing in social media. This paper aims to examine Under the framework of positioning theory, popular Instagram posts related to #plasticsurgery and their accounts were analyzed and the relationships between the posts’ attributes and the number of user comments and likes were examined.

A total of 272 posts associated with #plasticsurgery and their account profiles were analyzed.

Plastic surgery procedures were positioned on Instagram primarily by doctors and celebrity patients who were motivated by self-promotion. Doctors often omitted their medical credential information from their account profile and posts while featuring their vanity photos, emojis and consultation solicitations. They showed patients as the objects of surgery. On the other hand, patients positioned themselves as individuals with the agency by showing their faces rather than focusing on their body parts. Instagram users responded better to the doctors who positioned themselves more as business owners than medical professionals by soliciting consultations, offering discounts, displaying surgery photos and using emojis. In responding to patient posts, Instagram users liked under-dressed images more than fully clothed images and commented more on before-and-after photos than others.

In Instagram, doctors positioned themselves as self-interested providers of plastic surgery services, whereas patients positioned themselves as active consumers. Medical professionals’ social media activities should be more closely monitored to protect patient safety and the trust between patients and doctors.

This study shed light on how doctors and patients position themselves on social media and how they are received by social media users in the context of #plasticsurgery on Instagram.

This chapter examines the surgical body modification experiences of transgender and cisgender people in the United States. It analyzes how surgery consumers with different gendered histories pursue “enhanced” embodiment. Both cisgender and transgender people obtain similar surgeries, but their procedures are differently regulated. Based on 40 in-depth interviews, this chapter compares the presurgical and postsurgical experiences of transgender and cisgender people. The findings show that cisgender and transgender people felt similarly about their bodies before surgery and reported corresponding cosmetic and psychological motivations for surgery. Both groups also had comparable postsurgical outcomes and used surgery to actualize a more desirable gendered embodiment. Ultimately, surgery resulted in changed gendered embodiment that enhanced the self for both groups. It could be psychologically transformative for cisgender people and provide more of a cosmetic effect for transgender people. These findings complicate disparate regulations of transgender and cisgender surgeries. They highlight surgeries as body technologies that enhance gendered embodiment allowing both cisgender and transgender consumers to articulate gendered concepts of the self.

NCEPOD (1990) states that we must ensure that all emergency patients have prompt access to theatres, critical care facilities, and appropriately trained staff 24 hours/day, every day of the year. Hospitals providing emergency services must provide a dedicated emergency theatre. Our previous study highlighted potential savings and reduced waiting times, leading to the introduction of a dedicated weekly half‐day list. This purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of the extra list on both waiting times and spending.

This research is based on a prospective audit of emergency surgery (Lister Hospital, Stevenage) from October‐December 2006. Delay times from booking time to time of operation were calculated. This was assessed based on a standard of a day surgery unit, where the ideal maximum is a half‐day wait. Findings were compared with data prior to the introduction of a dedicated list.

There were 186 operations performed. The mean wait for surgery was 0.7 days/patient, compared with 1.3 days/patient prior to the dedicated list. Assuming that the ideal waiting time is a maximum of half a day, 55 per cent of patients achieved this, compared with 22 per cent prior to the introduction of the list.

The introduction of a dedicated day surgery plastic surgery trauma list led to a significant reduction in patient wait time. The dedicated list also achieved a potential reduction of 900‐bed days/annum, thus saving £180,000/annum for the trust.

The purpose of this study is to assess the factors that motivate young people’s intention to undergo cosmetic surgery in Vietnam.

This study applies Ajzen’s theory of planned behavior as a research model. The study is based on a quantitative method that applied exploratory factor analysis.

In total, 412 valid responses are used for the statistical analysis. The results confirm that subjective norm (SN), attitude toward cosmetic surgery and perceived behavioral control (PBC) are the main factors that motivate young people’s intention to undergo cosmetic surgery.

The results show the positive relationship between attitude toward cosmetic surgery, SN, PBC and intention to undergo cosmetic surgery in Vietnam.

To evaluate the impact of rationing guidelines on the practice of reduction mammaplasty, with particular reference to patient selection.

A retrospective audit was performed. Patients who were accepted for surgery in the first nine months following the date of publication of new and explicit inclusion criteria were compared with patients who were accepted for surgery in the 15 months preceding publication.

Of 131 consecutive patients, 98 were accepted before publication of the inclusion criteria, with 33 after. A total of the 97 of 98 and 33 of 33 were symptomatic. Conformity to criteria for body mass index (BMI) increased from 65 of 98 (66 per cent) to 25 of 33 (76 per cent, p=0.143) Attendance at pre‐operative breast seminar increased from 72 of 98 (73 per cent) to 29 of 33 (88 per cent, p=0.099). Incidence of smoking increased from 18 of 98 (18 per cent) to 7 of 33 (21 per cent, p=0.799). Patients under the age of 30 accounted for this increase. The number of cases who failed on more than one criterion fell from 17 of 98 (7 per cent) to 2 of 33 (3 per cent, p=0.155).

Demonstrates a non‐significant reduction in the number of obese patients being accepted for surgery, and a non‐significant increase in uptake of pre‐operative nurse led seminars in the practice. Since publication of the inclusion criteria, all but one of the patients accepted for surgery with exclusion criteria failed on the basis one criterion only. Not successful in enforcing abstinence from smoking as a condition for surgery, particularly among younger patients. To help do this objective ways to assess smoking status need to be looked at. A re‐audit is required to complete the loop.

This is the first paper to present audit results for the new inclusion criteria for reduction mammaplasty.

This paper explores the ethical issues surrounding the use of cosmetic surgery for and by people with learning disabilities. Although such interventions are less common in Britain than in the US, there is a growing interest in the use of cosmetic surgery to correct perceived defects in appearance and speech impairment. However, the assumed potential of cosmetic surgery brings adult protection concerns into stark relief.

Is humanity heading to immortal living? If so, what areas of society are playing an active role in achieving this? In order to understand this, the study explores the relationship between immortality and the wellness and medical tourism industry to seek potential relationships between them and ultimately, asks difficult questions about the growth of these tourism sectors and the potential need for greater regulation of them.

Taking a pragmatic philosophical approach and through the examination of refined information from secondary sources and published material and reports, the study presents original theoretical knowledge and a model exploring tourism and human immortality.

This paper argues that continued growth in the wellness and medical markets today could lead to a world where transhumanists and cyborgs are present in our world, even taking over from Homo sapiens. The study presents a model highlighting the potential role of wellness and medical tourism markets, illustrating the potential for future consumer services that could further fuel the search for immortality. Thus, how such markets and consumer desires are (in)directly supporting humanities desire for (non-human) immortal existence.

Today, individuals are driven by wellness practices and medical and cosmetic desires and are willing to travel the globe in search of companies who are either capable of carrying out the desired procedures or seeking prices more affordable to them. This research offers novel insights into these complex relationships and maps the affiliation between wellness and medical practices and the concept of immortality.

This study seeks to determine if body image disturbance and eating disorders that have plagued Western women are now becoming more common in Asia as well. Additionally, it attempts to examine perceptions of the impact of models in advertising in both cultures. The third person effect which states that people believe the media impacts others more than themselves is tested to determine if this contributes to behaviors related to body image. A comparison of responses from young women inHong Kong and the US indicate that both cultures are similar in the degree of body dissatisfaction and dieting behavior exhibited. However, Western women spend significantly more time exercising and are more willing to have plastic surgery to improve their appearance. The third person effect appears robust across cultures, but generally does not contribute significantly to explaining body image related attitudes and behaviors. The results have important implications for both third person effect and cross cultural consumer behavior.

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether the current surgical reimbursement system in Japan reflects resource utilization after the revision of fee schedule in 2014.

The authors collected data from all the surgical procedures performed at Teikyo University Hospital from April 1 through September 30, 2014. The authors defined the decision-making unit as a surgeon with the highest academic rank in the surgery. Inputs were defined as the number of medical doctors who assisted surgery, and the time of operation from skin incision to closure. An output was defined as the surgical fee. The authors calculated surgeons’ efficiency scores using data envelopment analysis.

The efficiency scores of each surgical specialty were significantly different (p=0.000).

This result demonstrates that the Japanese surgical reimbursement scales still fail to reflect resource utilization despite the revision of surgical fee schedule.