A plastic surgeon and his private practice who were sued in late December by a state Attorney General are once again making headlines.
Quite literally.
In December, headlines announced that the Seattle-based surgeon was being sued over allegations of fake reviews, fake photos, and the alleged use of illegal non-disclosure agreements and threats with patients, in order to “falsely inflate online ratings.”
Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson announced on December 29, 2022, that he had filed a [48-page] federal lawsuit against the doctor, Javad Sajan, and the private practice he owns, Allure Esthetic.
“Allure stopped at nothing to keep negative reviews off the internet,” Mr. Ferguson said in a December press conference.
Four months later, in April and May, new headlines announced the surgeon wasn’t just one of the best in Seattle or Washington, but the “number one plastic surgeon in the U.S.”
The former were written by media outlets, the latter by the surgeon’s own private practice, Allure Esthetic, according to authorship notes.
Google ‘believes’ it. Yahoo! and other outlets republished it.
These are press releases and they go as far as the fee is high, triggering an automated process involving little if any human oversight prior to appearing on several hundred or more different websites, some of them quite prominent.
The surgeon’s own practice has written them and paid for their distribution, according to authorship notes, via at least two pay-to-play platforms.
The Washington State Attorney General’s office said they “can confirm we are aware of these press releases and are looking at them closely.”
Dr. Sajan’s practice did not respond to a number of online messages or phone calls for comment.
An individual responding to direct messages from the Times said they were the clinic’s “social media coordinator,” before later posting numerous daily personal affairs—dinners and time at-home with children—as they occurred; something only Sajan or a close acquaintance could do.
Sajan then blocked the Times on Instagram, the one means of contact it had been able to establish.
Reached by phone in late December by the Associated Press for comment on AG Ferguson’s lawsuit, a person answering the company’s phone hung up three times, the AP reported.
“I can confirm we are aware of these press releases and are looking at them closely.”
Washington State Office of the Attorney General
“Best Plastic Surgeon In Washington Is Javad Sajan,” the headline of an April 26 press release written and published by Allure Esthetic says.
“Dr. Javad Sajan At Allure Esthetic Plastic Surgery Is The Best Plastic Surgeon In America,” boldly proclaims another paid release, written 14 days later, on May 10.
Six days later, another release written by Allure bears the headline, “Dr. Javad Sajan Is One of the Top Plastic Surgeons in Seattle.”
Like others before it, that one appears on such websites as Yahoo! Finance.
Viewers who scroll far enough down the desktop page—and who click a button to reveal the complete story—will come across a closing notice stating that the author of the article is none other than Allure Esthetic.
One popular premise of press releases and other pay-to-play articles of this type, according to online marketing experts, is that they can be picked up automatically by websites with a higher “domain authority,” resulting in the article ranking higher due to it now appearing on a more authoritative website than, say, a local practitioner’s.
In cases, the articles—written by one’s own company—can also appear instead to be the opinion or position of the many third-party websites on which they appear.
Dr. Javad Sajan is also the owner of a medical marketing company, “RealDrSeattle,” that caters to plastic surgeons and med spas.
- “The Best Plastic Surgery Marketing Of 2020 Is realdrseattle,” reads the headline of an August 2020 press release from his marketing firm.
- “Best Transgender Documentaries,” is the headline of an October 2022 press release from the firm, which lists a single documentary, produced by Sajan.
- “Best Breast Augmentation In Cleveland, Ohio Is By Dr. Matt Goldschmidt” is the title of a March 2023 press release from the firm.
While the doctor or his staff have long employed similar press releases for his own and his client’s businesses, the number, ratio, and frequency of them increased significantly three months after the lawsuit garnered national and international media attention.
Google, which services more than 95 percent of mobile search traffic worldwide, now proactively offers up excerpts of these evidently none-too-substantiated claims.
Some users questioning the popular search engine about America’s top plastic surgeons—as well as a number of distantly related queries concerning such things as botched procedures, or lawsuits involving entirely different plastic surgeons—have been presented this excerpt by Google:
While “best” is an entirely subjective criteria, it’s also a popular one.
One that numerous patients nationwide search for and presumably depend on the results of.
When Newsweek magazine announced its 2023 take on “America’s best plastic surgeons,” Dr. Sajan wasn’t among more than 350 plastic surgeons listed.
Nor in 2022, or 2021, when the outlet’s national rankings began being published.
Those rankings, though limited, are based on a national survey of some 2,000 plastic surgeon peers.
Widely regarded as one of the more accurate surgeon rating systems, searches for a “Dr. Javad Sajan” on Castle Connolly’s “Top Doctors” website listing also produced no results.
(In a May 2023 release, Sajan’s staff say that for four consecutive years, he has been recognized as one of Washington’s best by the American Institute of Plastic Surgeons.)
The Code of Ethics of the The American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS), suggest that unless such claims of superiority can be “factually substantiated,” they may be grounds for a range of responses from the Society, including disciplinary action and expulsion.
Dr. Sajan is not a member of that society, according to a search conducted on its website.