okay. okay. I know I am not the last honest plastic surgeon. But I am told a lot that I educate my patients more than their other consultations. I am told a lot that I don’t candy coat things. A favorite story of mine:
I was discussing risks of surgery with my patient, and she asked, “Why do you get complications?”
“Pardon me?”
“Well I saw another surgeon and they didn’t mention ANY of this stuff to me.”
Oh. Now I see the issue. There are some doctors who minimize the risks or don’t mention them at all. You see the risks in a gazillion page consent form when you do your preop. (It’s like reading the tiny print insert in a Tylenol bottle.) Or the “You’ll be fine honey.” When I do a consultation I discuss it all- good and bad. At a consultation for a breast augmentation, I talk about all kinds of risks -bleeding, infection, change in breast feeding, sensation, asymmetry, DVT/PE, capsular contracture, deflation, and the likelihood you will eventually have to do a second surgery to fix something… So does that mean if you go to another doctor will these things will not happen?
Clearly the answer is no.
I do a lot of surgery and my complication rate thankfully is low. I like boring, dull, uneventful surgeries. As I say, it is good to be interesting at a cocktail party, not in the OR.
But you need to understand the risk you take when you do surgery, particularly when you are healthy and fine, zooming through life, and you decide to do elective cosmetic surgery. When I hear there is a 1% chance of BLAH complication, I am a cup half full girl, and I think “I have a 99% chance of not getting that.” But someone is that person. Someone is that 1 person out of a 100 who gets it.
My patients in Palo Alto are educated. They are smart, insightful, busy women. So I educate them on the good and bad of procedures. Complications are rare. Most don’t cause big issues and are just a bump in the road. Many can be avoided.
But you should know.