Cosmetic surgery for children and adolescents. Deontological and bioethical remarks.

Abstract

The only interventions deemed ethically acceptable are those that serve the "objective interest" of the minors involved from the standpoint of and conducive to sound mental health and balance in a patient's teenage years; by the same token, disproportionate interventions (e.g. overly invasive or pointlessly risky), or all those deemed unsuitable with regards to a poor cost-benefit ratio are viewed as unacceptable. In the process of considering the best interest of the minors involved, a wide array of factors come into play, such as: age, maturity, psychological and emotional conditions, motivations put forth by the underage patient, the opportunity to procrastinate the operation: parents, who are naturally entitled to give consent to the surgical procedures, and physicians are primarily liable to safeguard and act in the minor's best interest. The authors attempt to lay out how medical science has evolved over the past century, and aim to set forth an array of considerations centered on cosmetic surgery for adolescents.