10 min read
Every week someone sits across from me and says a version of the same thing: I've been researching for months and I still don't know how to tell the good ones apart.
I understand why. In Beverly Hills, every website looks expensive. Everyone is "world-renowned." Everyone has a wall of five-star reviews. The marketing has become so uniform that the thing you're actually trying to evaluate — surgical judgment — is the one thing the marketing can't show you.
So here is how I would evaluate a surgeon if I were the patient. Not a ranking, not a list of awards. The questions I would ask, and the specific things I would verify myself before I let anyone operate on me.
Verify board certification yourself — in two minutes
This is the single most important step, and almost nobody does it.
"Board certified" is not a protected phrase. There are certifying boards that sound authoritative and are not recognized by the American Board of Medical Specialties. A physician can complete a weekend course, join a board that exists largely to issue certificates, and legally advertise as a board-certified cosmetic surgeon.
The one you want for surgery of the face, breast and body is the American Board of Plastic Surgery. It requires an accredited residency in plastic surgery, written and oral examinations, and ongoing maintenance of certification.
Don't take the website's word for it. Look it up:
- American Board of Plastic Surgery — verify a surgeon
- American Board of Medical Specialties — certification check
- Medical Board of California — license lookup
The California lookup also shows disciplinary actions. It takes two minutes and it is public.
For context on my own training: I am certified by both the American Board of Plastic Surgery and the American Board of Surgery, and I am a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons. The general surgery certification is not decoration — it is five additional years of managing patients when things are complicated, which is precisely the training you want available if something unexpected happens in an operating room.
What to ask: Which board certified you, and in what specialty? A confident answer is immediate and specific.
Ask where the surgery happens — and whether that facility is accredited
Patients ask about the surgeon constantly and about the operating room almost never. This is backwards. Most serious complications in elective surgery are not failures of technique. They are failures of setting.
An operating room should be accredited by an independent body — QUAD A (formerly AAAASF), AAAHC, or the Joint Commission — or the procedure should be done in a licensed surgical center or hospital. Accreditation means someone outside the practice inspects the equipment, the emergency protocols, the medication handling, and the staff credentials.
What to ask:
- Where exactly will my procedure be performed, and is that facility independently accredited?
- Who administers my anesthesia — a board-certified anesthesiologist, a CRNA, or the surgeon?
- What is the plan if I need to be transferred to a hospital?
A surgeon who is genuinely prepared answers all three without hesitation, because they have thought about the bad day, not just the good one.
Find out who is actually in the room
This one matters more than most patients realize.
In some practices the surgeon you consult with is not the person performing every part of your operation. In others, several surgeries run concurrently and the surgeon moves between rooms. None of that is necessarily hidden — but it is rarely volunteered.
I operate on one patient per surgical day. That is a deliberate structural choice, and I'll be honest about the tradeoff: it means I do fewer cases than a high-volume practice, and it means scheduling requires patience. What it buys is that nobody is waiting on me in another room. There is no incentive to move faster than the tissue allows. The judgment calls that happen mid-operation — a millimeter here, leave that fat pad alone — get the attention they deserve.
You do not have to choose a practice built this way. But you should know which kind you are choosing.
What to ask: How many operations do you schedule the day of mine, and will you personally perform every portion of my procedure?
Read reviews like a real patient — the good, the bad and the ugly
No one's results are perfect, and no surgeon pleases everyone. That is exactly why reviews matter: not because a perfect score exists, but because patterns do.
Look in more than one place. A single platform can be gamed; a pattern across several is harder to fake.
- RealSelf — patients tend to be detailed about the consultation, recovery and whether the result matched the plan.
- Healthgrades — useful for verifying hospital affiliations and seeing patient feedback over a longer period.
- Yelp — less clinical, but it often surfaces how the practice handles scheduling, billing and follow-up.
- Google — the most visible, and usually the most volume; read the three-star reviews especially.
How to read them:
- Ignore the five-star love letters and the one-star rants at first. Both are emotionally loud and rarely specific. Start with the two-, three- and four-star reviews — that is where the actual information lives.
- Look for repeated themes. One complaint about communication could be a bad day. Six complaints about communication is a system.
- Notice what the practice responds to. Do they answer the substantive reviews with specifics, or only the angry ones with damage control?
- Read the bad reviews twice. The first time for the patient's frustration, the second time for facts: what procedure, what date range, what actually happened. Sometimes a bad outcome is surgical judgment; sometimes it is a personality mismatch. Both are useful data.
- Check dates. A cluster of old complaints followed by silence may mean a practice changed. A steady stream of the same complaint means it didn't.
Then ask the harder question: Will you show me a review or outcome you consider imperfect, and tell me what you learned from it? Surgeons who think critically about their own work will have an answer. The ones who pretend every patient is thrilled are the ones to worry about.
You can read my own patient stories across platforms — the good, and the honest ones too.
Ask about revisions before you need one
Revision surgery is a normal part of this field. Tissue heals unpredictably; implants and bodies change over years. A surgeon who implies revisions never happen is either inexperienced or not being straight with you.
What to ask:
- What percentage of your cases need a revision, and what usually drives it?
- What is your written policy on surgeon fees, facility fees and anesthesia fees for a revision?
- Over what time window does that policy apply?
Get it in writing. "We take care of our patients" is a sentiment, not a policy.
Notice whether you are being sold to
The consultation itself is data. Pay attention to structure, not warmth — everyone is warm.
Signals that concern me:
- A discount that expires if you don't book today. Surgery is not a mattress sale.
- A package deal that adds procedures you didn't come in asking about.
- No one tells you that you might be a poor candidate for what you requested.
- You spend more time with a coordinator than with the surgeon.
- Recovery is described as effortless.
Signals that reassure me:
- The surgeon says no to something. Declining a case is the clearest evidence of judgment.
- Risks are described specifically, with numbers, not as boilerplate.
- A smaller or different procedure is suggested than the one you asked about.
- You're told to take time and think.
I turn down cases. Sometimes because the anatomy won't deliver what the patient wants, sometimes because the goal is being driven by something surgery cannot fix. That conversation is not fun, but it is the job.
Ask the surgeon what they actually do all day
Plastic surgery is broad. A surgeon who performs breast reconstruction weekly has different hands than one whose practice is 90% rhinoplasty. Both can be excellent. Neither is interchangeable.
What to ask: How many of these do you perform in a typical month, and what part of it do you find most technically demanding?
The second half of that question is the useful one. A specific, slightly technical answer — the transition zone, the lateral pillar, the deep plane dissection near a particular nerve — tells you this is someone who thinks about the operation. A generic answer tells you something too.
The honest summary
There is no ranking that identifies the right surgeon for you, and any practice claiming to be objectively "the best" is telling you about their marketing budget rather than their operating room.
What you can do is verify credentials independently, confirm the facility is accredited, learn who will be in the room, read reviews critically, get the revision policy in writing, and pay close attention to whether anyone is willing to tell you no.
If you'd like to have that kind of conversation, request a consultation or read more about my training and practice. Come with the list above. I would rather answer all seven questions than have you decide based on a website — including mine.
The short version
The best consultation is the one where you arrive asking these questions.
Request a private consultation →