Kaiser Health News recently reported that three highly-respected health systems – Johns Hopkins, Dartmouth-Hitchcock and the University of Michigan – promised to require that surgeons who wished to perform challenging surgeries at their member hospitals do at least the number of those procedures believed necessary to maintain their skills.
Studies performed at Stanford and many other top institutions consistently found that operations performed by surgeons who are highly experienced in those procedures achieved considerably better outcomes. Patients whose doctors had less experience in the surgery they needed were more likely to suffer poor results or even serious complications.
The surgeries studied were challenging procedures that were often a matter of life and death. Now, no one is likely to die because of a bad facelift. But substantial research and practical experience has shown that an attractive face and neck can have a big impact on happiness, self-esteem, self-confidence and personal/professional success. Therefore, if you want to improve your looks, it is essential to choose a surgeon with an extensive record of good results in the procedure you need.
How much experience is enough?
Like musicians and athletes, a tiny minority of plastic surgeons is exceptionally talented and will get excellent results regardless of how often they perform a particular procedure. But to achieve outstanding outcomes, the vast majority of musicians, athletes and surgeons need practice – lots of it. The highly esteemed Dr. Malcolm Paul, past President of the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery put it this way:
Becoming really good at Cosmetic Surgery does not come from performing 100 different operations once. Rather, real skill in Cosmetic Surgery comes from performing a variation of one operation hundreds of times.
Most plastic surgeons work on the entire body. This lowers the number of face and neck cosmetic surgical procedures they perform each year. According to industry statistics, in a 30 year career, the average plastic surgeon in the U.S. will do around 500.
Because I focus solely on the face and neck, I’ve performed over 5,000 face and neck procedures, including more than 3,000 facelifts, necklifts and eyelid restoring surgeries. Some of the other surgeons on LookYounger.News have done even more. Averaging out our track records, note how we stack up against the average plastic surgeon:
John Birkmeyer, MD, Chief Academic Officer at Dartmouth-Hitchcock health system stated that for any surgical procedure in any given area:
There are usually one or two or three surgeons who are recognized as go-to doctors. But there’s this tail of other surgeons who do only a few a year.
A strong record of experience in facial plastic surgery allows many of my colleagues and me to use local anesthetics plus oral sedation. Experts have called this as “the safest method available. “ If you want to truly improve your appearance and get the kind of results the patients in the video below have gotten, make sure you work with a truly skilled and experienced facial plastic surgeon.
