All surgeons are not equally qualified. Board certification is an essential criterion, but even board certified surgeons vary widely in qualifications and skills.
The phone book is not the best resource! Unfortunately, much of the information on the Internet by surgeons is purely advertisement that is often not backed by any track record that verifies their expertise. You can certainly find names in both the phone book and on the Internet, but what you really need to know are hard facts about a surgeon's credentials education, training, and board certification and documented evidence of a surgeon's experience not just what the surgeon claims, but what the surgeon has published in respected scientific journals that document those claims.
Where did the surgeon train? How long? Is the surgeon board certified? By whom? What does board certification mean? What are the surgeon's other important credentials? Which credentials are important, and which are not? What are some important red flags? All of these questions involve surgeon credentials. Before you ever call a surgeon's office, you should check out the surgeon's basic credentials. Otherwise, you are more likely to waste valuable time and money or, worse yet, make poor decisions. Here are some things you need to know to check out a surgeon's credentials.
In most states in the United states, any physician who has completed four years of medical school and obtained an M.D. degree can legally advertise as a plastic surgeon or a neurosurgeon (brain surgeon) or any other type of surgeon without having obtained a single day of specialty training. Any physician can call himself or herself a plastic surgeon! Legally. Any licensed physician can advertise as a plastic surgeon without a day of specialty training in plastic surgery. Any licensed physician can operate on you if you let them. Legally.
Can't happen, you say? It happens every day. Patients see an ad or hear a name, go to a surgeon, and submit to a procedure that changes their bodies forever. They do this without ever investigating the surgeon's credentials, without ever seeing more than one surgeon, without ever learning about the operation they're considering, and without confirming a surgeon's experience.
When a less than optimal outcome occurs, unbelievably, many patients allow the same surgeon to operate on them repeatedly often without ever seeking another opinion or researching the surgeon's credentials! After the downhill slide, ultimately something or someone must get the blame. Incredibly, it's usually the breast implant or the last surgeon who operated trying to correct the problems. I've seen literally hundreds of such cases in my twenty seven years of practice. Rarely have I seen a patient take responsibility for her lack of homework in selecting a surgeon. Many patients spend more time shopping for a car than they spend selecting a plastic surgeon. It's your body, and you'll be looking at it for the rest of your life. It's your job to select your surgeon. Don't complain later if you neglect your responsibilities. Selecting your surgeon is the single most important thing you can do to assure an optimal result.
So, how do you go about it? The first step is to understand how a plastic surgeon is educated and what various credentials really mean. What is board certification? What does it mean? Board certified by whom? Some credentials are meaningful. Many are less meaningful. Once you understand basic credentials, you can assemble a list of surgeons who have meaningful credentials. Then you'll need to shorten the list by looking past board certification to other useful information. After you shorten your list, you can begin calling surgeons' offices and requesting information. Your final decision and surgeon selection should be a combination of credentials, quality of information you receive, and your experiences during your consultations.
Author Resource:-
Dave Stringham, the President of LookingYourBest.com writes about plastic surgery in Laguna Beach, California and plastic surgery procedures such as dallas breast augmentation, rhytidectomy, breast augmentation, rhinoplasty, abdominoplasty, and liposuction.
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