The answer is YES! By going through the fake review case study above, you would understand why it is imperative for us to strip you naked for pre-op and post-op photograph and video taking. If you do not wish to give consent for the photos and videos to be published, you may do so. Photos and videos will be taken but they will not be published without your signed consent. But, these photos and videos still need to be taken to protect ourselves, medicolegally. As a surgeon, you would never know what a patient is up to, and may do in order to tarnish your reputation.
Another reason for taking before and after surgery pictures/videos fully-naked, is to show that we do not condone the practice of passing off pictures/videos of 2 completely different persons, wearing the same underwear, as the same person, being taken before and after surgeries. This practice is particularly common in weight-loss advertisements, especially in video format, where advertisers engage 2 different models, one fat, and one slim, of the same skin color, wearing the same underwear, and pass them off as the same person. With Deep Fake Artificial Intelligence technology, you can stick one person’s head onto 2 completely different bodies, passing them off as the same person. By comparing special discerning individual characteristics, such as the shape and position of breasts, presence of breasts asymmetry, the position, size and color of nipples, presence of prominent hip bones, the pattern of pubic hair, C-section scar, moles, and even the appearance of external genitalia, one can tell if the persons in the before and after pictures/videos are the same person! All these discerning characteristics can, unfortunately or fortunately, be conveniently hidden with underwear! So, beware of what you are seeing! The phrase “Seeing is believing” does not apply here! A video of before and after procedures can be shot with 2 completely different persons wearing the same outfit or underwear! This is also why we always take videos half-way through our liposuction surgeries, to show the difference between both sides, before and after liposuction.
In the case study shown above, this particular patient from Medan, refused to take her underwear off during pre-op photo and video taking, and we allowed it to happen. It turned out to be a big mistake to allow her to keep her underwear on. Had it not been for the fact that Dr Arthur Tjandra pulled her underwear down during pre-operative video taking to reveal her pre-existing C-section scar, she would have gotten away with her fake review which alleged that Dr Arthur Tjandra had created a long depression on her lower abdomen, which resembled a C-section scar. Her underwear conveniently covered her pre-existing C-section scar in all the pre-operative photographs and videos taken before her surgery. There would be no evidence at all to prove that the scar was pre-existing, had Dr Arthur Tjandra not pulled down her underwear accidentally during pre-operative filming, for just a few seconds! Those few seconds of filming captured in the video we have published in the case study above, saves Dr Arthur Tjandra‘s reputation! She might have planned this. We understand that not all patients plan to frame their surgeons. But things like this do happen, from time to time. Especially now, that it is so easy to tarnish a surgeon’s reputation with the availability of review sites like RealSelf.com. We have requested RealSelf.com to take down the fake review and even referred them to the patient’s video case studies, to prove that it is indeed a fake review. Unfortunately, RealSelf.com refuses to take the post down. It is most likely because Dr Arthur Tjandra is not a fee-paying member of the site. This is a good marketing strategy to encourage doctors to pay for membership, by refusing to entertain doctors who are not fee-paying members, who complain about fake reviews on a medical/surgical review site.
This fake review serves as a reminder for everyone that there are indeed such patients in the world. They are everywhere! But, luckily due to our stringent selection criteria for surgeries, we have only encountered one patient who posted fake review about Dr Arthur Tjandra on the internet since 2008, the year Elixir de Vie was established. Most of the time, these patients have underlying psychiatric disorders or are depressed because of marriage or relationship issues. A lot of them are women whose husbands or boyfriends are having extra-marital/extra-relationship affairs. When their relationships or marriages fall apart, they take it out on their surgeons, by making up stories. They feel that it is their surgeons’ fault that their relationship falls apart, because their surgeons are unable to make them attractive enough to “win back” their husbands/boyfriends, even after they have spent so much money on cosmetic surgeries. Hence aesthetic plastic surgeons have to take all necessary steps to protect themselves, medicolegally. Recording evidence in the form of photographs and videos when the patients are fully naked, both before and after surgery, is one of the most important steps a liposuction surgeon should take! If you would not strip down for pre- and post-op photo and video taking, we would recommend you to go to someone else for your surgery. We cannot take the risk of you hiding some pre-existing scars and defects under your underwear, and later on accuse our surgeon of creating those scars and defects years after your surgery, when you relationship or marriage does not go well, like what the patient who posted the fake review on RealSelf.com did! Worse still, you may even blackmail us to pay for compensation!
In the fake review case above, Dr Arthur Tjandra performed her abdominal liposuction in 2018, but strangely, she waited 2 years, till 2020, to post a bad review, using post-operative pictures taken just a few weeks after her surgery back in 2018. The pictures show obvious evidence of post-operative bruising and swelling, which is very common after liposuction surgery, but she passed those off as the final result of her abdominal liposuction surgery. Strange, right? But, the strangest thing of all is that RealSelf.com allows that to happen, and chooses to ignore the evidence which we have presented to them!