Internet medical marketing: “Anything goes”?

James H. Carraway, MD , is Senior Scientific Editor of Aesthetic Surgery Journal.Those of us who watched the practice of aesthetic surgery develop from the early 1960s to 2006 can easily recall that marketing of any sort was taboo for many years. However, with the increase of aesthetic surgery patients and the corresponding increase of plastic surgeons there grew a need for some mechanism to match patients with appropriate physicians.The marketing of medical skills developed slowly, except for a few renegades who marketed aggressively early on. Today, most plastic surgeons would agree that it is reasonable and ethical to tell the public who you are, what you do, and to provide details about your personal qualifications and the surgical procedures you perform. However, the freedom of Internet marketing should not provide license . In many ways, the Internet has become a communication tool in which “anything goes.” In spite of this, it is the job of plastic surgery and other medical websites to be vigilant about getting the facts to the public in the context of the highest ethical standards.For our purposes, a definition of ethical may be that …