Ten Questions to Ask Any Cosmetic Surgeon — and the Answers You Want

Most consultation questions patients bring are about the procedure. The questions that actually distinguish one surgeon from another are about credentials, facility, anesthesia and what happens when something does not go to plan. Here are ten worth asking, and what a good answer sounds like.

1. Which board are you certified by?

“Board certified” on its own means very little — there are many boards, with very different requirements. Ask for the name of the board. Then verify it yourself: the certifying board's own directory, plus your state medical board's license lookup. In Florida that is the Department of Health MQA search, which is public and takes two minutes.

2. Is your surgical facility accredited, and by whom?

Ask for the accrediting body by name — AAAASF, AAAHC, the Joint Commission, or state licensure as an ambulatory surgical center. Accreditation is what independently verifies equipment, emergency protocols, staffing and infection control. “Accredited” without a named body is not an answer.

3. Who administers my anesthesia, and what are their qualifications?

You want a board-certified anaesthesiologist or a qualified CRNA operating within a proper supervisory framework, present for the whole case and doing nothing else. Anesthesia is where the serious adverse events in elective cosmetic surgery cluster, and it is the question patients ask least.

4. How many of this specific procedure do you perform in a year?

Not total career volume — current, specific volume. A surgeon performing forty rhinoplasties a year is in a different position from one performing four, regardless of how many operations they have done in total.

5. What is your revision rate for this procedure, and who pays for it?

Every honest surgeon has a revision rate. A surgeon who says they have never revised a case is either very early in their career or not counting. The follow-up question matters more: what is your policy on revision cost, and is it in writing?

6. Will you perform the entire operation yourself?

Ask directly whether an associate, a fellow or a resident will be operating, and whether the surgeon will be present for the whole case. In practices running multiple rooms, this is a real question.

7. What would you recommend if I were your family member?

This one reliably changes the register of the conversation. It also tends to surface the option the surgeon actually favors, as opposed to the one you came in asking for.

8. What are the arguments against operating on me?

A surgeon who cannot articulate the case against your procedure has not thought about it properly. There is almost always a case against — timing, an anatomical limitation, a less invasive option worth trying first, a health issue to optimize. You want to hear it.

9. May I see before-and-after photographs of patients with anatomy like mine?

Not the best cases — comparable cases. Similar starting anatomy, similar age, similar skin type, similar tissue. And ask how long after surgery the photographs were taken. A facelift at six weeks is a photograph of swelling.

10. What happens if I have a complication at 2am?

You want a specific answer: a direct number, who answers it, and where you go. Not a call center, not an answering service that takes a message until Monday.

One thing that should not be on the list

Price, as the deciding factor. Price differences in this field mostly reflect operative time, facility standard, anesthesia qualification and surgeon experience — the things that determine both safety and result. Revision surgery routinely costs more than the original operation would have cost with the right surgeon the first time. I see the arithmetic of that decision in my revision practice regularly.