18 Jan 2008 10:21

How to Choose Your Breast Augmentation Surgeon

Before you commit, firstly confirm that the surgeon you are seeing is either a:

Certified Cosmetic Surgeon with The Australasian College of Cosmetic Surgery and is on the Procedural Register of the College for Breast Augmentations (this means that the doctor has done a minimum of 100 Breast Augmentations); or a
Plastic Surgeon (Please note that this qualification in itself is not necessarily an indication as to expertise in this procedure)

The next important step is to confirm the experience of the particular surgeon in Breast Augmentation by seeking straightforward answers to the following questions:

How long has he/she been doing Breast Augmentations?
How many Breast Augmentations has he/she done?
How many Breast Augmentations do they do per month?
What complications have they seen?
Have they been the subject of any litigation in that procedure? If so, how many times?
Does he/she hold hospital accreditation?

Hospital accreditation is a very important criterion. It is an indication that the doctor in question has satisfied a Hospital Accreditation Committee as to his surgical training and experience. And Breast Augmentation is certainly a surgical procedure!

These are all very important criteria that merit your consideration before you finally choose your Breast Augmentation surgeon. If you are not being given straightforward answers or you are not completely satisfied with all the answers you owe it to yourself to see someone else as well.

Additional Points To Consider When Choosing Your Breast Augmentation Surgeon:

Your Consultations:

Quality of Consultations: Initial Consultation should be at least 1 hour long - necessary to give you all the information you require to make an informed decision as to whether or not to have the procedure. Shorter consultations cannot possibly give you all the necessary information.
You should be shown not just a handful of photographs but a portfolio of the surgeon’s Breast Augmentation results.
All consultations should be by the surgeon himself and not by his nurse or other employee: After all, shouldn’t the person who’ll do your surgery also be doing your entire consultation?
You should also be given a detailed Information Brochure on Breast Augmentation to take home. This should recap the information given at the consultation.
Second Consultation: Unless the Second Consultation is combined with the Initial Consultation, you should be offered a further consultation in the event you decide to proceed. This is necessary for you to have plenty of time to compare implants in an unrushed manner, to plan your surgery in detail and answer any questions you may have. One short Initial Consultation is not the ideal basis on which to proceed with surgery.
Be wary of Free, ‘Over the Phone’ or ‘Online Internet Consultations’: Although you may consider these ‘convenient’, we consider them to be entrepreneurial, unprofessional and can never be a substitute for a quality consultation given in person by the doctor who’ll do your surgery.

Consider the surgeon’s recommendations but do not let the surgeon make all the decisions:

No one knows better than you how you want your breasts to finally look. Rather than your surgeon select which implant he/she thinks is the appropriate one for you, the surgeon should involve you in the entire decision making process all the way through especially when it comes to the selection of size and shape of the implants.

Choosing your implants:

Your surgeon should, based on your measurements be able to show you a full range of implant sizes and shapes – and in more than one brand – for you to insert under your clothing and visualise and compare the likely degree of correction each can give you. Only in this way can you choose the implants that will best produce the look you desire.

Ensure your procedure will be done in a hospital or fully-accredited day surgery centre:

Perhaps more importantly than with any other procedure, Breast Augmentation should be performed under the most sterile conditions in order to minimize the chances of implant pocket infection. Infection of an implant pocket is a disastrous complication which involves two further returns to the Operating Theatre plus replacement of the involved implant – all at considerable additional cost. So you owe it to yourself to minimise the risk of infection and maximize your comfort and safety by ensuring the procedure is to be done in a fully-accredited Hospital or Day Surgery. A facility that is not fully-accredited will likely not have the same standards as a Hospital.

Will there be a specialist anaesthetist present?

Breast Augmentation is usually done under General Anaesthesia but in some cases it can be performed under Intravenous (Twilight) Sedation with Local Anaesthesia. Some doctors performing Breast Augmentation do not have the necessary qualifications for hospital accreditation and accordingly perform Breast Augmentations in their Rooms without a Specialist Anaesthetist! If you are told an Anaesthetist is not necessary - DON’T BOOK IN! – GO ELSEWHERE. Your comfort and safety depend on it.

The possible consequences of NOT having a Specialist Anaesthetist present include:

Your procedure could prove a painful and distressing experience. Only a Specialist Anaesthetist has the knowledge and experience to administer the specific medications in their optimal doses and combinations to make the surgery pain-free.
If you are told that instead of a Specialist Anaesthetist a Nurse will be giving you the drugs on the doctor’s instructions, once again DON’T PROCEED! This is a very UNSAFE practice and one which you should not even consider. Neither the doctor nor his nurse will likely have the knowledge and experience of an anaesthetist in the use of these drugs and how to treat any unexpected adverse reactions to them.
Finally, ask yourself this: If there is no Specialist Anaesthetist and you have an unexpected adverse event or reaction to any medication, who in that room will have an anaesthetist’s knowledge necessary to treat your emergency situation? The simple but frightening answer is: probably NOBODY!

Source: www.esteemstudio.com.au

1300 ESTEEM (1300 378 336)

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How to Choose Your Breast Augmentation Surgeon

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