Surgical Safety: Importance of Knowing the Background of Your Surgeon

Recently in Charlotte, a surgeon was in the news after the state’s medical board requested a hearing over allegations he provided insufficient care to several patients, one of whom died the day after he performed a facelift on the patient. The concern is not only over the surgeon performing inappropriate surgeries on patients but also doing so without adequate patient monitoring. This is why it’s so important to know the plastic surgery background of your surgeon.

There is no doubt that there are financial considerations for almost every patient we see, but safety should be paramount and not an area to “save money.” In appropriate circumstances, certain procedures can be done under local anesthesia (using injections with numbing medicine like at the dentist and not going completely to sleep with a breathing tube). However, performing surgeries this way in order to save patients money is dangerous.

At Charlotte Plastic Surgery, we have a fully accredited operating room equipped with the latest technologies to ensure the safest surgery possible for you or your loved one. We don’t cut costs by offering unsafe options so patients choose our practice over other practices. What we do is provide safe and excellent care to all of our patients by well-trained, board certified surgeons who work in a fully accredited surgical facility. Our safety standards and records speak for themselves.

It’s also a major concern to see that some physicians in the Charlotte area are offering procedures and surgeries that are outside their realm of principal training. Charlotte Plastic Surgery encourages every patient to really look into the plastic surgery background of your surgeon. Plastic surgery is one of the most competitive fields in medicine, often meaning that the best and brightest physicians pursue it as a career. Completing that fellowship and then taking and passing your boards is another step to maintain a standard of safety and quality in the profession. If your surgeon has no formal fellowship training in the surgery you are seeking, or if that surgeon was unable to pass their board’s certification process, this should be a red flag.

Here at Charlotte Plastic Surgery, we have board-certified plastic surgeons who have trained at some of the world’s most prestigious programs. We only perform surgeries in which we garnered appropriate training at a plastic surgery fellowship program accredited by the American Board of Plastic Surgery.

The next time you consider plastic surgery, we implore you to consider more than just bottom-line pricing. You have to consider your safety or the safety of your loved one, your surgeon’s training background and board certification and remember that plastic surgery is major surgery and not something to bargain shop.