Know Who Your Surgeon Is. Stay Safe.
Posted Nov. 4, 2009, 8:34 p.m.
"Do you have privileges to do this surgery in a hospital?"
"In what specialty is your board certification?"
These are the 2 most important questions to ask your surgeon. Why? I'll explain.
An MD becomes eligible for licensure after completing medical school and 1 year of post grad training. This training is in a hospital and may involve work on all the different wards or be specialty specific such as in internal medicine or surgery. Then the MD takes and passes the National Medical Board Examination part 3 and may apply for a license to practice medicine. That license states "to practice medicine and surgery". An MD so licensed can legally do aesthetic surgery in an office O.R. Scary, right? In fact this rarely happens. What is more common is that surgeons do surgery for which they are not trained and board certified.
Most of us do more than 1 year of training after medical school. An MD certified by the American Board of Plastic Surgery has completed, 3-5 years of general surgery, or 5 years of ENT training and then 2 years of training in an accredited program for Plastic and Reconstructive surgery of the head and body. Board certification in plastic surgery also means that your MD has successfully passed a rigorous 2 part board examination in plastic surgery. An ENT surgeon with certification by the ENT board may do an additional year of training in aesthetic surgery of the head and be a great aesthetic surgeon for the face. But without having done a full 2 year plastic surgery training program, he or she has not trained in aesthetic surgery of the body. This may not be the best person to choose for your breast aug or tummy tuck.
Although an ENT surgeon may do surgery on the body using his or her own office O.R., a hospital will not allow him to do surgeries for which he has not received specific training. "Do you have hospital privileges to do this procedure?" lets you know your surgeon has the right training to care for you.
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