A prominent Thai plastic surgeon has publicly urged people not to take everything in the Australian 60 Minutes investigation into Thai cosmetic surgery at face value, saying he has been contacted by a surgeon connected to one of the featured cases who told him the reality was not as the programme presented it.
Dr Surawej Namhawm, a plastic surgeon, posted his response after the 9 August broadcast of the Nine Network programme, in an episode titled “Destination Disaster”. Reporter Amelia Adams spent six months investigating one of Bangkok’s largest medical tourism operators, featuring Australian women who said their procedures left them disfigured, including misplaced nipples and severe scarring.
Dr Surawej was careful to frame his post as a call for balance rather than a rebuttal of any specific claim.
He wrote that a surgeon involved in one of the cases shown had contacted him and described the full picture as different from what appeared on screen. He said he gave that account considerable weight, and that it led him to think viewers should also listen with a degree of caution.
As a fellow plastic surgeon, he said, he found the broadcast deeply uncomfortable to watch, particularly because 60 Minutes is a widely followed and trusted programme, and viewers who believed it would conclude that cosmetic surgery in Thailand is substandard, which he said is not true.
He acknowledged directly that bad practitioners exist. But he argued that those who work to standard are the majority.
Dr Surawej said he had decided to remove an earlier post in which another doctor, Dr Tany, had criticised the industry based on the programme’s content, on the grounds that the criticism assumed everything in the broadcast was true.
He said whether the parties involved choose to respond publicly is their decision, since any explanation would face both believers and doubters, along with many further questions from society.
His closing message was one that applies regardless of which account proves accurate. Cosmetic surgery, he wrote, requires careful thought and thorough research, because where it operates as a commercial business, it can take every form, good, bad and grey.
This is one side of a contested story. The 60 Minutes investigation featured serious first-hand accounts from named patients, several of whom described multiple corrective surgeries after returning to Australia. The Thaiger has not been able to verify an official response from the operator to the specific allegations, and as far as can be confirmed, the company has not issued a public statement addressing the broadcast.
Surawej’s post does not dispute any individual patient’s account. It asks that a surgeon’s side, which he says he has heard privately, be weighed before conclusions are drawn about the industry as a whole.
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- Thailand’s medical tourism recovery and rising demand for cosmetic surgery
Source: Dr Surawej Namhawm, 60 Minutes Australia, TV Tonight
The story Thai surgeon says a doctor in the 60 Minutes exposé told him a different story as seen on Thaiger News.
