Editorial:

Our Bridge

Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (cosmetic surgery, "beauty surgery") enjoys an ever increasing popularity all over the world. Beauty is of everybody's interest and people can decide by themselves what they consider beautiful. Media reports accompany this upward trend. Some reports are based on thorough research and presented in a realistic way. Such reports are taken for granted. Unjustly, they often disappear from people's memory too quickly. In contrast, articles which are based on dubious and unreliable sources often upset the public. Plastic surgeons continuously moan among themselves while journalists have to work on their own. Some papers ("Süddeutsche Zeitung") have implicitly phrased complaints that they can hardly get hold of people with both serious and interesting information.

That is the point where we want to build our bridge and meet journalists halfway. Instead of moaning we have organised a world-wide expert service preparing qualified information for the public. We want to be serving, as opposed to steering or ordering. Our information will reach the reader if it is taken up by journalists, and it will only happen within the framework of the ethical principles of the ISAPS (International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery).

New products are often thrown into the media by the industry directly where they are recognized by (potential) patients among the readers. Those patients then enter their plastic surgeon's practice and demand this or that treatment with all the praised magic effects. But there are no long term results that can be refered to nor any proof of experience with complications. We want to make this change. Only after scientifically conducted studies are our experts going to offer suitable devices, new medication or treatment methods. This procedure will help to avoid dubious products without a seal of quality entering the market. Our expert information pool is supposed to protect patients against risky products.

Our information will be made available for print, audio and electronic media in Germany. It contains: research in modern aesthetic surgery, new trends, comparisons of international statistics, new surgical techniques and therapeutical methods, new reliable products and medical devices, the latest significant publications, international meetings and events, bizarre or amusing facts and stories if available as well as statements from celebrities or common thoughts of an average citizen around the subject of aesthetic surgery.

We successfully appointed 30 globally renowned luminaries from 22 countries and six continents to work with us on the editorial board. All of the luminaries are highly competent, actively participate in main scientific congresses and are constantly updating their information. Most of them are members of the Public Education Committee at the ISAPS and of the International Committee at the ASAPS (American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery). These are globally the two largest, oldest and most renowned scientific associations.

In addition to the members of our editorial board several scientific authorities will exclusively provide articles for German GESAPS - Aesthetic News. These articles can be taken over by the media either in parts or as a whole with a reference to their original source. Photographs and excerpts of our email-communication will also be on offer. If requested we also help journalists to get into direct contact with all of our members.

We hope that for journalists will enjoy reading Aesthetic News. Our aim is to improve and encourage mutual communication. Although we are well aware that a dog biting the mailman is not a news story - whereas the opposite would be - we do not want to provide sensationalist reports. Instead we are aiming at realistic reports which are of public interest. None of us has ever won the Pulitzer-Prize for fine writing; we are only offering an open hand which is looking for its counterpart. As Rainhard Kringel put it: "A smile goes out and it returns, a bridge has been built."

Sincerely yours, Dimitri Panfilov