Answers to Your Plastic Surgery Questions

You have landed! I'm a Patient Care Coordinator in a Plastic Surgery Office. This is what you have been looking for so long - I'll give you the scoop on how to choose a plastic surgeon; what to ask and how to ask it. The information in this paper will be beneficial in helping you determine if surgery is right for you and then how to look and where to look for the right plastic surgeon. So what really goes on behind the scenes in a typical plastic surgeon's office? Read on to learn what you can do to help make the decision on which surgeon is right for you and the correct mindset and approach that one must have that is most conducive to having a great experience; what is realistic to expect and what is totally unrealistic. But first, it will be very helpful to learn where the current mindset of the general patient is who wants plastic surgery and ask yourself...Is this me?

It's scary out there and if you have been looking for awhile, you may be on the verge of just giving up or, even worse, just picking the surgeon that is the cheapest and the closest location to you. Let's face it, money, or lack thereof, is a real driving force in our lives and we are constantly comparing all the services we buy. We pick and we choose and think of ways to possibly drive the cost down on services that we need and especially in these economic times we are constantly looking for more bang for our buck, which one of us wouldn't? It's a human condition. So we do a little manipulation to get even one more dollar off the price of the cost estimate we've just been given so we can spend it elsewhere. We want to haggle and cajole and then we tell our friends what a great deal we just got. Admit it, it makes us feel good to think we have saved some money for ourselves and a lot of times we are very much in competition with our friends and acquaintances (...and secretly, our enemies, too!) and that's ok!

But this is where we make the mistake when choosing a plastic surgeon for elective or even reconstructive surgery. It's a big one, and a very dangerous one. Looking at 'having a procedure done' ( I call it 'SURGERY') as if it were like buying a car or getting our nails done is very, very dangerous. Just using the words, 'having a procedure done' makes it benign...like, 'Having your hair done.' The concept of plastic surgery has now become equated on the same par as having a facial at the day spa around the corner or going to get our legs waxed or our 'hair done.' Don't fall into this trap! These are all services we are familiar with and because humans are social in their nature, we tend to want what the other guy has. We gather together and we compare. It's primal. We use the experiences of others to help us decide. Technology that is available to us moves at an amazing speed; we text, we twitter, we constantly have a phone in our ear and we make ourselves available 24/7 to our jobs, our family and our friends.

The range of patient demographic for a Plastic & Reconstructive surgeon has expanded enormously. It encompasses the widest range it has ever been, mainly because of the baby-boomer generation. We've all heard the saying, "Fifty is the new Thirty." There's a reason for that. Baby boomers who, during the sixties, used to say, "Don't ever thrust anyone over thirty!", have now turned fifty! My, my! This generation have introduced the country and society as a whole to naturopathy, ergonomics, whole body wellness, mind-over-matter, massage therapy, you're only as old as you feel, real body age, yoga, yogurt, whole foods, hypnotherapy, mysticism, body-building, jogging; power walking; I could go on and on, but you get my drift.

The baby-boomer generation has singlehandedly taken the stigma out of having Plastic Surgery. The "Giggly, post-pubescent, young person, who is uneducated about their own body but who has just seen what they want on their friend and they want it too; who have some graduation money set aside or may have parents that still have deep pockets because they are getting good grades, and so breast augmentation plastic surgery is within their reach" to the "Scared 35-45 year old, who has just looked at themselves in the mirror and have seen for the very first time, a floppy neck, crinkled skin or bags under their eyes. They just raised their arm up to brush or comb their hair and realized in horror that their upper arm was flapping with each motion they made. They may have no money problems because they are a two income family or they may have a good job, but they haven't been able to save like they wanted and are now looking at an aging and unfamiliar face looking back at them in the mirror and start to ask their friends, do they see it too? If that's what my face looks like, what must my body look like to other people? They might need financing; they have a good work ethic and are knowledgeable about paying-off a debt and are anxious to just get it done now so they can reap the benefits of looking and feeling younger, before they get old" to the "Retired or almost retired; yes, I'm old but I'm not gone from this world yet; I still have sex, I want to have fun, pre-geriatric baby-boomer who is just as much at home parasailing and riding a motor cycle as they are taking care of their grandchildren" all have contemplated consulting with a plastic or cosmetic surgeon, having surgery or have actually had this surgery in their lifetime.

Yes, it's expanded, but you see, it's not so much that the patient demographic has expanded that makes it a dangerous situation but it is how we view and think about cosmetic or plastic surgery that makes it dangerous. Let me enlighten you. The fact that cosmetic and plastic surgery is now so commonplace is both good and bad. It's a double-edged sword. The availability of plastic surgery is a good thing; but thinking about plastic surgery in a superficial way is very dangerous. Unfortunately, most of the time, when something is readily available to the masses it becomes somewhat humdrum and, believe me when I tell you, there is no such thing as humdrum surgery! EVER!

We jump on the internet and get 'instant results.' We want what we want when we want it and the concept of 'waiting' has become foreign to us. We get used to obtaining results so quickly that if the results are not what we want or expect, it's oh so easy to 'just do it over and over' until in our own mind it gets done right. Our expectations get skewed and somewhere during this personal revelation we start equating "surgery" with "easy" and "commonplace." Reality TV and