I’m sure the writer figured you never would have agreed to do the story if you knew her spin on it. And since the story was attention-grabbing, that’s the only reason it caught my attention enough to mention it here, thus giving Allure publicity. Well I definitely think it’s good for patients to be knowledgeable about their procedures, and I’m sorry you were tricked.

Actually the ’story behind the story’ is that of a journalist (Joan Kron) using unethical Bait and Hitch tactics to write scary stories.

I’m the “poster girl” featured in the story. I also have been helping patients become better informed about plastic surgery for the past 5 years. When Kron culled me for the story, she told me it was to be about ‘informed patients wishing to play a more active role in communicating to their doctors and also choosing the right doctors or procedures’. In this way she asked me to “help” with her story and implied she was to show case me in a favorable light because she felt I had done so much to help patients understand plastic procedures more and also help them choose good doctors.

Then she turned the theme into one of “Picky”, “dangerous” patients who “seize control” or who are “obsessed” and used my personage (photo personal identity) as a springboard to all mention of doctor gripes about those kinds of patients.

She BAITED me by telling me she admired things such as my knowledge and ability to communicate with doctors and select doctors and then HITCHED me to a theme that was about “difficult” patients. Something where she chose ME for attributes she “admired” but then twisted them to fit the hidden agenda of her story hitch. For example: being informed turned into “difficult”, ability to make good choices, turned into “picky”
playing a more active role in expressing what you want to the doctor became “controlling”.

Bait and Hitch journalism is when a journalist SUCKERS someone into a theme they don’t know about ahead of time because they can’t actually find someone who ‘fits’ it to lend their personage to it. So she found me, someone who is informed and makes good doctor selections and twisted the presentation of me around so she could have a free “poster girl” for her theme. It’s unethical in my opinion but it’s something journalists (eg. Kron) often do to plastic surgery patients when they want to peg fit them into their semi-sensationalistic themes. It’s because she could not find the people who actually fit into her theme participate that she stooped so low as to cull me into “helping her with her story” by telling me she wanted to do a piece on how informed patients are making great strides in proper procedure and doctor selection. Then hitched up my personage into a very disparaging theme.

That is ‘the story behind the story’. For more discussion of this, see: Makemeheal.com Message boards and look under the face lift section for a thread called “Miss J featured in Allure”