Surgical marathons: Is marketing hype dictating practice standards?

A re You Hot?, Bachelorettes in Alaska, Celebrity Boot Camp, Dog Eat Dog, Love Cruise, Meet My Folks, My Life Is a Sitcom, Race to the Altar, Temptation Island, Trading Spaces — these are just a few of the more than 80 reality shows available to American television viewers today. At what point is enough enough?Stanley A. Klatsky, MD , is Editor in Chief of Aesthetic Surgery Journal .We have watched reality-based television in the form of game shows, talk shows, tabloid news shows, and crime shows for years. However, producers behind the new crop of reality programs are pushing the envelope further than anyone—except, perhaps, Jerry Springer—has done in the past. The premise of most of these shows is simple: People are placed not in real but, rather, surreal situations. They are then encouraged to act in unusual or outrageous ways, often for money but sometimes simply for notoriety. In such circumstances, seemingly ordinary people have shown an astounding willingness to humiliate themselves, even betray their families and friends, in exchange for their …