Book review "Straight Talk About Cosmetic Surgery."

I was asked by the Yale University Press to review an upcoming book on Plastic Surgery, "Straight Talk on Cosmetic Surgery" by New Jersey Plastic Surgeon, Dr. Arthur Perry. This book will be on sale in two weeks for $18 and be available from Yale Press as well as Amazon.com, etc.

I don't know Dr. Perry, but I can tell he'd be fun to sit and have drinks with. His book was genuinely interesting and it's written in a really down-to-earth and very funny tone. It is remarkably comprehensive in the subjects it touches, and gives fair treatment and assessments to a lot of emerging technology, trends, and fads. He is fair in his treatment of other cosmetic providers in a section devoted to this and advertising, but pulls no punches on the lunacy of ENT's, Oral Surgeons, and others doing procedures they are clealry not adequately trained in performing.

Dr. Perry peppers fairly brief and well-written summaries with spot-on commentary like , "Surgeons who do laser blepharoplasty will admit in the locker room that they use it as a marketing ploy for their practice."

I sampled some of the chapters, none of which had anything I found way off base or inaccurate. You will always hear differences of opinions between Plastic Surgeons over technical issues and subjective things. I found his chapter on breast augmentation informed consent & risks excellent, while wishing he'd come out stronger on telling patients NO when they want implants too large for their anatomic breast borders (one of my personal pet issues)

Notably absent from this Dr. Perry is much in the way of self-promotion, which is a refreshing change from some other books like this I've seen before. This is a book I would strongly recomend for patients, and even other health providers to understand Plastic Surgery procedures.

Rob