As an independent plastic surgery consultant, I have spoken of this slump that is finally in the news almost eight months ago. It was inevitable in light of the US economy. What people outside of the industry do not understand is that from a business perspective replacing surgery dollars with injectables (which are costly to the surgeon) and lasers (which require the purchase of expensive machinery )is not a viable solution to a profitable business. The example I use is the equivalent of a job at McDonalds replacing an engineer’s job and being counted as no job lost in the US economy because we lost one and gained one. You have to consider that a $10 per hour job replacing an $80,000 per year job does not help our economy. In the same way replacing injectables and laser income for surgery dollars does not help the board certified plastic surgeon. They trained many years to do surgery. The surgeons who have maintained their standard and do excellent surgery (not chase the money) will be fine. The slicers and dicers will be gone (hopefully). I'm looking forward to the end of this slump when the surgeons that were unwilling to compromise and value the patient referral will be the surgeons that we have to choose from. I help patients who desire plastic surgery to find a way. www.AngelaSegal.com