Surgeons – carving out a name

Outrage over rogue cosmetic surgery practices has triggered not only a probe into the multimillion-dollar industry – it has renewed calls to tighten which doctors can call themselves surgeons. When an Australian television program aired videos last year of medical staff dancing as they performed liposuction on unsuspecting patients, many people were rightly horrified. But perhaps more worrying, for some doctors it did not come as any great surprise. Cosmetic surgery is big business, with an estimated half a million Australians spending $1 billion a year on it – more per capita than in the US. But there have long…