Türkiye'de güzellik ideallerinin araştırılması: Plastik cerrahi hastalarının ve hekimlerinin söylem ve davranışları

Intrigued by an increase in demand for aesthetic operations all over theworld, this study offers an in-depth investigation of plastic surgery as aconsumption phenomenon. First, it looks at how local and global notions of thebeautiful are negotiated in Turkey through consumption and marketing ofaesthetic operations. Second, it looks at the nature of a service relationshipformed between the surgeon and the patient-consumer, and how thisrelationship is constructed and maintained. Gazi University Hospital was chosenas the ethnographic research site.Results indicate that beauty is perceived as something that individualsimprove, upgrade, and refine through time. Potential patients tend to have oneof two ideals: The individual?s own younger appearance or someone else?sappearance. The ideal presented in the media is changing, making the targetboth difficult to achieve and difficult to catch. Here it is also possible to talkabout a marketing process initiated and maintained by doctors and aestheticmedical companies at a global level. Neither the dominant logic nor the newlogic of marketing can satisfactorily explain patient-consumers? behavior in thiscontext, where boundaries for the product cannot be established and there isconsiderably higher risk compared to other purchasing situations. It is possibleto talk about doctor branding in this context, where brand positioning and brandimage cannot be static since doctors are also people. Moreover, patientsatisfaction has longitudinal and interpersonal characteristics since it involvesthe approval of others.Keywords: Beauty, Body, Plastic Surgery, Globalization, Service, Medicine