The costs of cosmetic surgery can be the biggest barrier to achieving your goals. Fees charged by different practices will vary widely, and not always for reasons of quality.  Even within a practice, the fee for a specific procedure will vary between patients.  Complexity and scale of procedures can vary widely between patients Patient characteristics (e.g. health problems requiring hospital surgery) may influence the costs. How to lower the costs of your surgery? If procedures can be safely combined (e.g. breast and abdominal), there is often a savings of $1-2,000 because you are only paying for one trip to the operating room. A patient who has had previous surgery in…

caption=”(artist Jason Laurits-used with permission)”] If you have seen a reputable surgeon and not been offered surgery, the solution isn’t to keep searching until you find someone to take on your case. Eventually you will find someone hungry or adventurous enough to give it a go, and that is not a good criteria for finding a surgeon. Choosing a surgeon because they can accommodate your impulse decision for surgery next week is also a bad idea. Another source of problems is the pursuit of perfection: a result that is 95% perfect should be left alone, unless your surgeon feels very confident in doing a revision. Bad results stand out, good…

We don’t advertise our proficiency in treating skin lesions, and that is probably unfair to the many people who are troubled by ‘minor’ problems and don’t know who to see for advice and treatment. One of the commonest questions we are asked is “do you use a laser?”. Lasers are useful when there is a lesion under the skin surface that is coloured differently than the surrounding skin. Purple or red vascular lesions are best treated by laser, and we will refer patients to colleagues with expertise in this approach. Aside from this indication, most skin lesions are best treated by meticulous surgical technique under magnificiation, followed by expert wound…

“I’m not happy, Doctor??? No Plastic Surgeon wants to hear this from a patient, but it is inevitable that a small percentage of the thousands of patients we see would be unhappy. How a practice responds to complaints may well distinguish a great practice from a good one. Why are patients unhappy? Surprisingly, it most often arises from good outcomes, as bad outcomes are thankfully quite rare. Examples (from our practice): 1. Patient seeks a more youthful appearance and facelift is recommended. Doesn’t want surgery, only injectables, despite warning that injectables like Botox and Juvederm are limited in their effect. Patient returns 3 weeks following injections, unhappy with modest effect…

At the recent Toronto Aesthetic meeting, the topic of smooth versus textured cohesive gel breast implants came up for discussion. The differences between Mentor and Allergan textured implants was also debated. Studies have not consistently demonstrated the superiority of one implant over another, in part because these implants have properties that allow one implant to be better in some situations, and another implant in others.  Despite the absence of good studies, our experience and that of other top Toronto breast augmentation surgeons has been that texturing does not make a big difference in the development of capsular contracture.  Texturing does allow the use of shaped (anatomic) implants, as a smooth surface…

Despite what your mamma told you, it’s also what’s outside that counts. Looking your best helps you to feel your best. It also helps you to make the most of your opportunities both socially and at work. Diet, exercise, and ‘choosing the right parents’ are important contributors to achieving good health and appearance, and many people also include cosmetic surgery in their formula for success. The increasing popularity of cosmetic surgery has predictably provoked some negativity, and it’s worth reflecting on the justification of this criticism. Does cosmetic surgery ‘raise the bar’, so that average-looking people lose out to those artificially enhanced by surgery? Yes, but why should naturally-attractive people…