ATLANTA — Serious cosmetic surgery is being performed live on Instagram while patients are awake. A Channel 2 investigation looked into the questions surrounding Goals Plastic Surgery, and now an insider is speaking out about how Goals hooks patients.
“As you can see, he’s harvesting all that beautiful liquid gold,” a Goals worker said in an Instagram live. Goal’s Plastic Surgery’s money maker is the Brazilian butt lift, removing that so-called liquid gold from one part of the body and putting it in another.
They like to show it all off. The surgeries are performed live on Instagram.
“This vacuum is actually all that excess fat, what I like to at Goals call liquid gold. Check out all of that liquid gold this morning,” a Goals worker said on Instagram live.
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Goals recorded Tavie Porterfield’s surgery for their social media followers. “Hi! My name is Tavie. I came to Goals because I am a mother of four and wanted to improve the appearance of my body.”
The metro Atlanta mom started as a patient and brand ambassador, then went to work for Goals when it opened the Atlanta location.
“The script is pretty much ‘Hey, my name is Tavie from Goals Plastic Surgery. I just went over your paperwork and looked at your photos, and I find that you’re a great candidate,’” said Porterfield.
Porterfield said she has no medical training. She said it wasn’t a doctor or even a nurse assessing who was a good candidate for surgery, it was her.
“Are you supposed to tell someone they were a bad candidate?” asked Channel 2 investigative reporter Justin Gray. “No,” answered Porterfield. “Everyone was supposed to be a good candidate?” asked Gray. “Yeah,” replied Porterfield. “And was a medical doctor looking at all this before you told them they’re a good candidate?” asked Gray. “No, we’re the ones that actually look over the profiles and decided we should push them through the portal or not,” answered Porterfield.
Dr. Pradeep Sinha the owner of Atlanta Institute for Facial Aesthetic Surgery said what’s best for the patient should always be more important than a sale.
“When you forget that your primary goal is patient wellness and patient well-being, and it becomes more to hey, how many sales can we turn, then I have an issue with that. I think that turns the whole medical patient-doctor relationship upside down,” said Sinha.
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Patients told Channel 2 it wasn’t until the day of the surgery that they finally saw their doctor.
“So, you never met with the doctor or talked to a doctor before the day of the surgery?” asked Gray. “No, I met my surgeon the day of,” said one patient.
Doctors say the Brazilian butt lift is the most dangerous cosmetic surgery. At Goals they perform it only under local anesthesia which means patients are wide awake the whole time. “Girls are screaming, like screaming because you can feel it all,” said the same patient.
“This is not getting a haircut right, I mean you’re actually having surgery near major organs near major blood vessels,” said Sinha. Channel 2 showed how some patients ended up with results like scaring and burns.
Goals employees tried to prevent a Channel 2 photographer from getting video of their Atlanta facility. “Public property, I can just stand right in front of you, right?” said a Goals worker. “I mean you could if you wanted to,” said the Channel 2 photographer. But nobody from Goals ever responded to Channel 2′s questions and requests for comment.
What about those miraculous Instagram before and after pictures that Porterfield and the other patients we talked to said convinced them to go with Goals in the first place? Porterfield said even though she was unhappy with the results of her surgery, Goals wanted to show it off on social media anyway.
“I’m like no. I don’t think you guys want to do a photo shoot with me because my results don’t look like those results right there. And she was like, ‘Oh girl, don’t worry about it. We Photoshop everything,’” said Porterfield.
Goals also sells patients of series of post-surgery massages that they say are critical for recovery from the procedure. Those can cost about $1,000 but many patients said Goals would take the money then not schedule or would cancel the massage appointments.
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