A study undertaken by Northwestern University in the US has found that just 18 per cent of cosmetic surgery-related posts on Instagram were made by board-certified plastic surgeons. A shocking statistic considering there are over 1.7 million posts advertising these procedures on the social platform.
Practitioners from other medical professions such as dermatologists, family doctors - even dentists and hairdressers – were found to be offering and promoting popular procedures without actually being qualified in the area.
The study found that generic hashtags using everyday language might be to blame for the worrying results. The hashtag #boobjob for example is more widely used than #breastaugmentation or #mastopexy. Similarly, #cosmeticsurgery and #plasticsurgeon far outweighed the medically correct hashtags of #aestheticsurgery and #aestheticsurgery, which a person of legitimate qualifications might opt to use.
The average person shopping for a plastic surgeon on Instagram probably won't be familiar with these medical terms. In turn, they run the risk of being exposed to an unqualified practitioner who is simply using the popular hashtags to gain visibility on Instagram.
