We have seen an uptick in the number of patients seeking Rhinoplasty driven by selfie-awareness amongst consumers trying to get the perfect selfie to post on Instagram. While great for business it has a few significant drawbacks.
Selfie-awareness is driving patients to plastic surgeons but leads to unsatisfied customers
The American academy of facial plastic and reconstructive surgery (AAFPRS) has noticed the trend too. According to a 2017 poll, 55% of facial plastic surgeons reported seeing patients, who wanted surgeries to help them look better in selfies up from 13% in 2016. The trend is no different in India as smart phones are commonly available and your social media avatar is a big part of your personality. But what happens when a patient’s phone or selfie taking style or ability leads to your work getting deemed as not good enough?
Close up selfies — when the lens is very close to the face — about 12 inches — it makes the nose look about 30% larger compared to the rest of the face. Patients may request a Rhinoplasty as their nose looks bigger than the rest of their face and they wish to have it corrected to get good pictures in selfies. When the picture is taken at a distance of 5 feet by selfie stick or picture taken by another person.
We did an experiment on model pictures taken at 1 feet and 5 feet distance on a model by the same mobile phone and saw the obvious difference. This also poses a problem when during recovery after a Rhinoplasty patient repeatedly takes selfies at a close distance and feels his/her nose looks bigger than what they wanted which leads to unsatisfied patients.
A big part of being a Rhinoplasty surgeon is expectation management. Selfies are a part of our customer’s lives they also need to become a part of your counselling before you take on a case.