Navigate Your Beauty
Smart and Safe Plastic Surgery Solutions
This how-to on choosing a plastic surgeon goes more than skin deep.
A patient-centered guidebook to the complicated world of plastic surgery, Navigate Your Beauty is a collaboration between Dr. Rod J. Rohrich and one of his enthusiastically satisfied clients, Mary Crosland. Concisely written and full of practical how-tos, the book successfully provides detailed and clear information on how prospective patients can make decisions about surgical options that emphasize safety and long-term satisfaction.
Enveloped in a striking cover, the volume outlines step-by-step instructions on how to determine which surgical procedures to pursue, how to choose a surgeon, how to prepare for surgery, and how to recover—and maintain results—most effectively. The authors present what they call the “Three Magic Questions” that prospective patients can use to find a safe, experienced surgeon. Each chapter ends with a summary presented as the “Five Key Points to Remember.”
Rohrich includes before-and-after photos of successful procedures in addition to sharing some truly frightening disaster stories of patients who chose cheaper and underqualified practitioners. These are told, he asserts, not to scare readers but to encourage them to consider the consequences of uninformed decision making about their surgical options. He then presents easy to understand instructions on how to avoid such pitfalls.
Crosland’s contributions take on the friendly tone of a trusted confidante wanting to share secrets she has gleaned through her own plastic surgery experiences. She chimes in throughout the book, reiterating Rohrich’s assertions and vouching for his expertise. While Rohrich is certainly thorough and authoritative, his advice would have been further bolstered had he described his recommendations in more general terms, explaining what a great surgeon would do. He instead relies almost exclusively on anecdotal evidence and his own (albeit extensive) personal practice experience to support his assertions. While he effectively advocates for evidence-based decision making in patients, he doesn’t cite peer-reviewed journals or statistics, and this can make the book feel at times like an extended sales pitch for his own services.
What does come across loud and clear, however, is Rohrich’s commitment to patient safety, self-determination, and empowerment. The message that the surgeon works for the patient and not the other way around resonates throughout the book as the authors encourage patients not to be self-conscious about asking questions, to request photographic evidence of past patients, and to research a potential surgeon’s qualifications, experience, and even complaints. A great surgeon, they reassure potential patients, will be up-front about his own education and experience, and even about past clients who have not been satisfied.
This is not a book for anyone who believes that beauty comes solely from within, or that the pursuit of youthfulness and physical perfection can reach unhealthy, almost obsessive levels. The authors discuss many seemingly normal physical traits (“saggy” earlobes and post-pregnancy bodies) as problematic characteristics that patients should consider fixing, but Rohrich does often balance this with examples of times when he has turned patients away upon assessing their requests as unrealistic, unhealthy, or dangerous.
Navigate Your Beauty will speak most convincingly to those who already believe that surgical procedures are a valid way to enhance self-esteem (as well as deal with medical problems, as not all of the surgery options discussed are merely cosmetic), and those potential patients will find it a valuable resource.
Reviewed by
Sarah Stewart
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book and paid a small fee to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. Foreword Reviews and Clarion Reviews make no guarantee that the publisher will receive a positive review. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
