translated from Spanish: Las Condes Clinic and marketing

Mr. Director:
In recent weeks the Las Condes Clinic has launched an eye-catching campaign with gigantigraphies showing a girl who has had surgery on her tonsils and a boy who has had a circumcision, with the phrase “simple, we do it better than anyone”. These sight ads are indistinguishable from those of mobile phones or clothing brands, which entails several ethical problems. First, no medical act is without risks and in particular, surgical procedures have a higher incidence of complications. This is why there is, within other reasons, an informed consent process that must be performed between doctors and patients before performing surgery and that materializes on a form that both must sign. Doctors can’t ensure results, but they’ve only put all the means to achieve them. Promoting misconceptions in the population regarding risks is irresponsible and has a social impact on people’s expectations when accessing those health benefits. This type of practice encourages private health institutions to enter the same competition logic as retail in the race to attract customers. On the other hand, when there is a fragmented and unequal health system like ours, it is at least violent to characterize health benefits as if they were a consumer good. This only hurts the trust in the public health system that serves the vast majority of Chileans, and above all damages the fiduciary role of the medical profession with citizenship.
Constanza Micolich V.
Fernando Manriquez V.

Original source in Spanish