Trend: Would you choose to be awake during surgery?

I’m a bit of a baby when it comes to blood and guts. I get woozy whenever anyone mentions anything gory and I nearly pass out when I have blood taken. I’d never have the stomach to be a doctor and I have no interest in watching a complex surgery, so when I heard about a woman electing to have breast augmentation surgery while conscious, I shuddered.

The Daily Mail reports that a clinic in Birmingham, U.K. has begun to perform elective cosmetic surgery using a combination of local anaesthetic and sedation, rather than a general anaesthetic’which would involve the patient being completely unconscious.

Who would choose to be awake for something like a breast augmentation or a face lift? Plenty of people it seems. According to the article, breast augmentation surgery has been dubbed "the lunchtime boob job," since patients are conscious during the local anaesthetic and can go home as soon as one hour after surgery.

Dr. Fazel Fatah and Dr. Hiroshi Nishikawa, the surgeons behind this operating trend at Westbourne Clinic, say it’s a safer alternative since a local anaesthetic doesn’t present the same number of complications as a general anaesthetic could.

Fatah even predicts that the trend will become increasingly popular.

"It’s the way forward for many procedures," he says. "Operations on the knee or other joints, nose jobs and even hernia repairs could be carried out under a local."

I understand that the possible complications from a general anaesthetic are risky, so I wonder, wouldn’t that be reason to reconsider the necessity of an elective surgery? While a local anaesthetic may be safer, what about the psychological effects of being awake during your own surgery‘it sounds pretty traumatizing to me.

What do you think of this surgery trend? Would you want to be conscious on the operating table?

Related:
‘ Does lunchtime liposuction really work
‘ 8 ways to avoid a medical mishap
‘ Weird surgery trend: Would you risk your health to have ears like an elf?