Who Had What Done in 2020?

Plastic surgeon touching face of young womanAt UMass Memorial Medical Group, our six cosmetic plastic surgeons have the highest levels of training and expertise that give our patients at our Worcester and Cape Cod the results they’re seeking with their aesthetic procedures.

Now that it looks like we’ll finally be able to put this stubborn virus behind us, let’s take a look back at what procedures other Americans were having in the midst of the pandemic. The statistics come from the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) for the year 2020. Let’s spend March’s first three blogs on trends and other interesting information from a completely unusual year — 2020.

Downtime

First off, the statistics need to address the elephant in the waiting room, namely the closed waiting rooms during the early lockdowns due to COVID-19. The ASPS member-surgeons reported that for roughly 15% of 2020 they were not performing any elective surgical procedures (averaging 8.1 weeks). This made for a general decline in the number of total procedures performed in 2020, but that isn’t by any means a trend. Lockdowns aren’t coming back. In fact, research points to a coming surge in both cosmetic surgery and other nonsurgical aesthetic procedures, as we’ll detail here…

Consumer views on plastic surgery

When gathering their yearly stats, the ASPS analyzed the responses of more than 1,000 women in a national survey. The research asked respondents how they feel about plastic surgery, the top treatments they were interested in, and their likelihood of pursuing a plastic surgery procedure.

Of the 1,000 women, 11% indicated they are more interested in cosmetic plastic surgery or nonsurgical procedures now than they were before COVID-19. This number is even higher for women who have already had surgery or a cosmetic procedure (24%). Of the women who previously had at least one cosmetic surgical procedure or minimally invasive procedure, 35% planned to spend significantly or somewhat more on treatments in 2021 than in the midst of COVID’s 2020. We’ll have to see how that pans out when the ASPS releases the 2021 stats in the coming weeks.

Zoom effect

The first wave of the pandemic showed increased demand for facial procedures in response to the explosion of Zoom meetings, Facetime calls, and general downtime at home. The fact that patients could recover at home without missing work played a part, no doubt.

When asking what procedures they were considering for 2021, the survey results showed that abdominoplasty (22%) and liposuction (17%) are the two top procedures women were likely to consider within the first six months of 2021. Again, we’ll see how that played out down the road.

In the next two UMass Memorial March blogs, we’ll get into the statistics, one for surgical procedures and another for nonsurgical offerings. Until then, if you’d like to investigate a cosmetic surgery of your own, please give us a call at (508) 334-5990 to schedule a consultation with one our six board-certified plastic surgeons.

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