In previous entries, I have described how your safety and happiness can be compromised by placing undue emphasis on costs in choosing an aesthetic surgery provider, or by allowing yourself to be fooled by those less ethical providers who would seek to confuse you by hyping the fancy equipment they use- distracting you from the fact that their training was NOT in plastic surgery.
Again, I think that the very simplest and easiest way to get to the bottom of this issue is to ask the provider this question:
Do you have privileges to do the operation you are recommending for me in a hospital?
Of course, it would be wise to then call the hospital to verify the physician's claim.
This is on my mind today because I recently have seen in my Orlando Plastic Surgery, Skincare, and Hair Restoration Center several patients in varying levels of despair over poor outcomes and injuries experienced as a result of allowing non-plastic surgeons to do liposuction on them.
One patient was duped by an
Orlando area eye doctor who evidently tells his patients that, (in the patient's words)
because he is capable of doing delicate eye surgery, he is more than qualified to do liposuction. As is usually the case with these "providers", he also spends a lot of time explaining why the equipment he uses is so special.
Unfortunately, as this patient learned, there is NO similarity between body contouring surgery and eye surgery- no matter what machine is used to perform the liposuction. This explains why, instead of achieving her goals for her body contour, she now looks like she has been attacked by a shark- with big dents in her thighs and rippled skin.
She looks terrible, and is going to need a large operation to reconstruct the appearance of her lower body (at additional expense), but is still better off than the patient I'll tell you about next....
This poor woman was interested in improving her body contour, and approached one of the Orlando area gynecologists she works for for a recommendation to a plastic surgeon. The gynecologist told her that he could do it for her, and when she asked if he was trained to do liposuction, he told her that he "[have done] it many times."
She later found out that she was one of the first patients he had attempted this on....after she underwent a painful and traumatic procedure, with
8 months of pain and development of a weakening in her abdominal wall. Now she needs a hernia repair.
Another patient who underwent liposuction by this same gynecologist also developed a hernia, and when she discussed the repair of the hernia with the gynecologist,
he told her he would personally pay for the hernia repair, as long as she went to another hospital!
Why do you think this is?Well, it turns out that the practice in which this gynecologist works is owned by a large Orlando area hospital, and that he does NOT have privileges to perform liposuction in the hospital (not having been trained to do so in his residency). He obviously doesn't want the hospital that owns his practice to know he is engaging in these activities.....
As reprehensible as these physicians' behavior is, and as poor as their ethics and morals clearly are, it is (at this point in time) the patient's responsibility to educate themselves about the provider, the facility, and the anesthesia they are about to subject themselves to.
Remember- ASK...
Where did you go to Medical School?
Where did you do your residency training?
WHAT specialty was your residency training in?
Do you have privileges to perform this operation in a hospital? Which one?
Only by asking these questions can you be assured of staying as safe as possible and maximizing your chances of ending up with the outcome you desire.
