This month we’re looking at a cautionary tale involving a doctor’s use of social media in her office. This rather shocking story made it to the mainstream media. The doctor, now permanently unlicensed, is currently facing more than a dozen lawsuits from former patients.
Just the facts
Dr. G was a plastic surgeon whose practice specialized in facial, breast and body cosmetic surgery. She received her degree in 2005, was in private practice until 2010, and was licensed to practice medicine in her state in 2009. Earlier in her career, she performed reconstructive surgery for breast reconstruction and maxillofacial reconstruction after trauma and was the medical director of breast services. at the hospital. In 2012, as a mother of 3 children under the age of 5, she started her own practice, Roxy Plastic Surgery. The practice initially consisted of an office manager and patient coordinators, but by 2022 the staff had expanded to 20 people, including 2 social media staff.
Starting in 2017, he discontinued insurance and focused on cosmetic surgery. Her practice primarily specialized in breast, abdominal, buttock, thigh and arm surgery, including Brazilian butt lifts. She has also performed breast fat grafting as well as breast augmentation, mastoplasty, breast reductions, tummy tucks, upper blepharoplasty, and lipoplasty, among other procedures.
Dr G’s office was busy. In 2022, there was a 2-year waiting list for her surgical practice and she performed 2 to 5 surgeries a day. Dr G understood the power of social media and started using it in her practice from the start. Believing that people may have unrealistic expectations of plastic surgery from television, she first created a Facebook account to educate people and prepare them, realistically, for recovery. He also wanted to demystify the surgical procedure and give patients and their families a “peek behind the curtain so they could see what was going on back there.” It expanded to other social media platforms, such as Instagram, Snapchat, and eventually TikTok. Dr G began posting (with the patient’s consent) before and after photos of patients on her social media feeds.
Starting around 2014, Dr G started using Snapchat to show videos of surgeries. These were not broadcast live, but rather videotaped and published afterwards. Later, however, when video-streaming social networking site TikTok became popular, Dr G began using it to live-stream surgeries in real time. To live stream the procedures, Dr G would have an employee film and stream on TikTok while Dr G performed the surgery. Her TikTok account grew in popularity and the doctor actively asked viewers to “follow” or “like” her on social media. She gained a huge following on social media over the next few years, with her patients referring to her as Dr Roxy and themselves as ‘Roxy’s Foxies’. Her practice sold merchandise on its website, such as T-shirts, which she advertised through social media.
During the live broadcast of the surgeries, Dr G interacted with the social media audience, numbering up to 300,000 people, and answered questions and comments read to her by the camera operator. Dr. G believed she was the “most transparent surgeon ever” because she showed what she was doing and didn’t try to hide anything. But, from 2018, he started taking precautions from the state medical board.
