Insiders Guide to Finding the Best Plastic Surgeon

There are a lot of boards certifying a hoard of medical professionals these days. If you’re looking for someone who is going to treat you with anesthesia and a knife it’s important to find a doctor who has been certified by a board that matters to other physicians. Ask your doctor, his partners and perhaps give the local hospital administrator a call about certification for surgeons, particularly plastic surgeons. At a minimum, you’ll want a plastic surgeon that has passed the respectability test at a hospital and is on the staff at one medical facility or another.

The best plastic surgeon is almost certainly not the cheapest, but not necessarily the most expensive either. Every metro area has its equivalent of Beverly Hills shopping areas and medical professionals. Doctors have followings among the elite and that may have more to do with social connections than with ability. With the best plastic surgeons, there’s a certain amount of talent that goes with the medical knowledge involved. There’s the artist’s eye for profile that goes with cosmetic nose surgery. There’s the ability to find that point of moderation so that a face lift looks like a younger you rather than a painting of you on an over-inflated soccer ball. With cosmetic breast surgery, it’s not only the profile but the engineering that will result in a natural, fulfilling look that lasts. That’s the doctor you want.

Perhaps the best way to find such a surgeon is to talk to people who look like they might have had cosmetic surgery. That degree of subtlety is the work of a surgical artisan. If you haven’t got access to a large pool of surgical successes, make a few passes through the local high-end salons. Before long you’ll hear the same names enough times to develop a short list. Professional medical organizations at both the county and state levels are usually good resources because to some degree, they are involved in self-policing of the profession. At a minimum, you can inquire about the various certifying bodies and determine which are the most respected.

Look for an older member of the medical establishment in your area and ask his/her opinion about local plastic surgeons. Older MDs are likely to have a more conservative view of cosmetic surgery and for that reason, are more likely to respect a plastic surgeon for ability instead of popularity or a high profile. Above all, you are going to want a plastic surgeon who considers medical treatment a two-way exchange. You want honesty about the possibilities and the limitations that cosmetic surgery offers for you. Ask for the surgical options, but also press for his/her opinion. What you see in you is a patient that wants to look better and feel better about yourself. What the doctor sees in you is a patient very similar to many he or she has seen in the past. Ask what is possible, what is plausible, and what, based on his/her experience, is best. The quality of the answers you get from the surgeons you visit will point you in the right direction.

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