Plastic Surgery Websites: How to Read Them

Because you are reading this, you are obviously interested in the websites of American plastic surgeons. Here, Dr. Face (Robert Kotler, M.D.) and Dr. Body (Stuart Linder, M.D) –- two board certified Beverly Hills cosmetic plastic surgeons –- provide insider information that will help you navigate around the most flashy websites and quickly discover if its offerings are a bounty — or a bogus.

There are some key features to look for on any surgeon’s website that will tell you volumes, letting you know if you are barking up the right tree and if you are onto a fully qualified and trained surgeon.

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Dr. Body (Dr. Linder): Start your search with a Google search box. Just enter the city where you want to have plastic surgery, then what procedure and then the word “specialist.”

Dr. Face (Dr. Kotler) So if you are looking for breast augmentation in California, a search phrase may  be: “Beverly Hills, breast augmentation, board certified specialist.” Or, if you’re  going to the East Coast and want nose surgery, you would enter: “New York City, rhinoplasty, specialist.”

Dr. Body: The top ten selections should be on the first page of the search engine report page, the SERP.

Dr. Face: Next, go to a plastic surgery website and click on the surgeon’s before and after plastic surgery pictures. There should be hundreds of the procedure you want, not five or ten.  Additionally, all the pictures should have been taken under the same conditions. The camera angle, the lighting, the distance from the camera to the patient and the backgrounds should all be the same. Only the patients are different.

Dr. Body: Why so many pictures? You want a surgeon who concentrates, focuses and specializes on the same four to seven procedures, does them over and over, week after week, year after year.

Known to their colleagues as “Master Surgeons,” those surgeons perform the procedures so often they will:

• Be very efficient
• Produce less bruising and swelling
• Disturb less tissue

Dr. Face: Now, let’s make it a little more challenging and do some detective work.

Because plastic surgery has been considered so lucrative, some doctors not trained in cosmetic plastic surgery – or even general surgery – have entered the field. That is not illegal in the U.S. Each state licenses physicians without regard to a presence or lack of board certification in the doctors’ specialties.

But from the standpoint of pursuing excellence through the long and laborious residencies and fellowship training programs, there simply are no shortcuts.

The lesser trained physician will not know some important things and probably lack a few essential skills.

Dr. Body: So on the doctor’s website, look for the surgeon’s bio or vitae and take a note on:

• The medical school
• The internship
• The residency
• The fellowship
• The board certification

Here’s what you’re looking for: The residency should have been in either plastic surgery or head and neck surgery. Those are the only two recognized specialties that fully qualify surgeons to perform the major invasive cosmetic plastic procedures like:

• Facelifts
• Rhinoplasty
• Tummy tucks
• Breast augmentation or reduction
• Liposuction.

The important board certification should be in one of the following:

• The American Board of Plastic Surgery
• The American Board of Otolaryngology/Head and Neck Surgery

A fellowship after the residency focuses on even more training and is usually considered a preceptorship at the side of an older, much more experienced surgeon.

Dr. Face: Don’t stop reading until you note exactly which board certification.  Because there can be a fly in the ointment: some doctors have board certification in, for example, radiology or gynecology. Sure, their ads will say “board certified” but the certification was in a field other than the accepted cosmetic plastic surgery specialties.

Dr. Body: It’s important because the training that qualifies a cosmetic plastic surgery is longer than medical school itself! A surgeon who takes that training has at least three to five years in a plastic surgery or head and neck surgery training program, performing surgery under the supervision of a very skilled and experienced professor. Many then go into a one or two year fellowship after that. All that is a huge commitment and personal sacrifice but it is the patient who ultimately benefits and that is very healthy.

Dr. Face: Compare all of that with, say, a board certified radiologist, gynecologist or proctologist  who has only taken a week-long course in liposuction.

Whom would you rather perform your surgery?