How Do You Find the Best Plastic Surgeon?

This is part one of my new series coming up. How do you find the best plastic surgeon? I'm not trying to be self-serving. I'm trying to help you figure out how to find your best plastic surgeon.

If you're looking for a procedure for yourself or for your child or for a loved one, you're searching. How do I find the best plastic surgeon? There's many ways of defining that. The best that you can reach physically within your city, within your state, within your country.

If you're willing to travel outside of the country, how do you find that person? The best one that you can afford. It has to be within your budget. So there's a whole lot of criteria for finding the best plastic surgeon.

But one of the most obvious ones is board certification. How do you find the right board certified doctor? There are lots of boards. There's lots of new boards that have popped up over the last 20, 30, 40 years, especially with the term aesthetic medicine.

Back in my day, we used to call it plastic surgery or facial plastic surgery. Now there's aesthetic medicine. So a lot of new boards have popped up. These boards allow a lot of doctors from different backgrounds and they don't basically have any strict criteria for are you a dermatologist?

Are you a plastic surgeon? Are you a facial plastic surgeon? Are you a pediatrician? Are you an internist?

Are you an ER doctor? They don't have that. So you have to look for the right boards. Number two, as a previous examiner for the American Board of Facial Plastic Surgery, I will tell you that we tested some brilliant candidates.

I personally sat there and tested some really smart people, people that had gone to the most incredible medical schools, got into the best residencies, the most competitive residencies, top three most competitive residencies, the most competitive fellowships. They knew their stuff. I mean, they knew it cold. But do they have the hands and the manual skills and the artistry to create beauty?

That's a whole different story. We don't test for that. There is no board that tests for that. So board certification from a legitimate board is extremely important.

It's an absolute must. If your surgeon is not board certified, walk away. That to me is the most basic, minimal criteria. It has to be there from a legitimate board.

It tells you that your surgeon knows how to be safe, knows information, is a smart person and has passed a whole bunch of strict criteria. But will they be able to build this project on your face, on your body that you want? No, there's no guarantee. You have to go beyond that.

Stay tuned for my second and third part to tell you how do you find and how do you go beyond that in your research.