Why there are no before-and-after photographs here.
It is the question most patients arrive with, and it deserves a straight answer rather than a missing page. Dr Hoffmann does not publish patient photographs on this website. He will, however, show you photographs of comparable cases in the rooms, where they can be explained against your own anatomy.
Three sets of rules apply, and they point the same way.
South African surgeons work under professional, privacy and advertising rules that between them make a public results gallery indefensible.
HPCSA — advertising and canvassing
Information published by a practitioner must be factual, verifiable and in good faith. It may not be comparative, may not claim superiority, and may not create unrealistic expectations of outcome. Patient testimonials are not permitted. A selected pair of photographs implies a typical result, which no surgeon can verify or guarantee — so it falls on the wrong side of that line.
POPIA — protection of personal information
A clinical photograph is health information, and health information is special personal information. Publishing it lawfully requires separate, specific, written consent that the patient can withdraw at any time. Consent tucked inside a surgical consent form does not cover a website. De-identification is not automatic either: a cropped torso or a face in profile can still identify someone.
Advertising Regulatory Board
Advertising for cosmetic procedures may not exaggerate outcomes or exploit body-image insecurity, even where the depiction is accurate. Galleries of best-case results do both by design.
A gallery shows you someone else’s anatomy.
Even setting the regulations aside, a photograph of another patient tells you very little about your own result. Skin thickness, cartilage strength, chest wall shape, fat distribution, healing tendency and scar behaviour all differ. Two people can have the same operation, performed identically, and finish in visibly different places.
Galleries are also curated by definition. The images chosen are the best ones, photographed under favourable lighting, at the most flattering point in healing. That is a marketing artefact, not clinical evidence — and it sets an expectation the surgery was never designed to meet.
So this practice does the opposite. Every procedure page carries a drawn plan showing the change being aimed at in millimetres and degrees, and a written account of what surgery does and does not change. Drawings cannot flatter.
Three ways to judge the work before you commit.
Case photographs in consultation
During your consultation Dr Hoffmann will show you photographs of comparable cases, chosen for anatomy like yours rather than for how well they photograph. This is patient education inside a clinical relationship, which is exactly where such images belong.
The drawn plan
Every operation is marked out before it is performed. The same drawing appears on each procedure page, so you can see the intended change — dorsal reduction in millimetres, tip rotation in degrees, implant plane, liposculpture vectors — before you are in a theatre gown.
See the procedure plans →Written expectations
Each procedure page states plainly what the operation changes, what it leaves alone, how long the result takes to settle, and the possibility of revision. If surgery is not the right answer for you, you will be told so in the room.
The consultation journey →If another practice shows you a results gallery, it is worth asking how consent was obtained, how the cases were selected, and how many patients with your anatomy are not in it. Those are fair questions, and they apply here too — which is why they are answered in person.
See the cases that actually apply to you
Book a consultation and Dr Hoffmann will take you through comparable cases, measurements, and a drawn plan for your own anatomy.