How to Verify a Plastic Surgeon Anywhere in the World, in About Ten Minutes

I am a plastic surgeon writing about how to check plastic surgeons, which is an odd position to be in. But the verification process is genuinely simple, almost nobody does it, and the people who do not do it are the ones who get hurt.

Here is the whole process. It takes about ten minutes and costs nothing.

Step one: the register

Every country with a functioning medical system maintains a public register. It is the only source that matters. A clinic website, a certificate image, an Instagram bio and a coordinator's reassurance are all trivially easy to fabricate.

Australia

Search the AHPRA public register by full name. Look at the registration type. Specialist registration in surgery with plastic surgery as the field means accredited specialist training has been completed. General registration only means it has not — the person is a registered doctor, which is a different thing.

Brazil

Search the Conselho Federal de Medicina portal. You are looking for three things:

• A current, active CRM number with a state suffix — CRM-SP for São Paulo, CRM-RJ for Rio de Janeiro. This is basic medical registration.
• An RQE — Registro de Qualificação de Especialista — recorded against plastic surgery. This is the specialist qualification and it is the one that matters.
• Membership of the Sociedade Brasileira de Cirurgia Plástica, checkable separately in the SBCP member directory.

A doctor with a CRM but no RQE in plastic surgery is legally able to practise medicine but has not completed accredited plastic surgery training. That distinction is the single most important thing you can establish about a Brazilian surgeon, and it takes two minutes.

Step two: the section everyone skips

On both registers there is a section covering conditions, undertakings, reprimands and disciplinary findings. It is public, it is free, and in my experience almost no patient looks at it.

A condition on registration does not automatically mean a surgeon is unsafe — conditions are imposed for many reasons and some are administrative. But you should know it is there before you consent to an operation, not afterwards.

Step three: volume in your specific procedure

Credentials get a surgeon onto your shortlist. Volume decides between the people on it.

Ask directly: how many of this specific operation do you perform in a year? Not how many operations in total — how many of yours.

There is good evidence across surgical specialties that outcomes correlate with procedure-specific volume. A surgeon performing your operation weekly has encountered more variations of your anatomy and more complications than one performing it monthly, and has developed judgement accordingly.

A surgeon who cannot or will not give you a number is telling you something. So is one who gives you an implausibly large one.

Step four: reading before-and-after photos properly

Galleries are the least reliable and most persuasive thing on any surgeon's website. Four things make them meaningful:

• Consistent photography. Same angles, same lighting, same distance, same background, neutral posture. If the 'after' has better lighting, different posture or a tan, you are looking at photography, not surgery.
• Multiple angles. Front, both obliques, both profiles. A single flattering angle tells you nothing.
• Comparable starting points. Find cases whose 'before' resembles you. A superb result on someone with entirely different anatomy does not predict your outcome.
• Stated time intervals. 'Six months post-op' means something. An undated 'after' taken at two weeks while swelling is still masking the contour means very little.

Then ask the question nobody asks: can I see a case that did not go as planned, and how did you manage it? A surgeon willing to discuss a difficult case honestly is showing you something far more valuable than another good result.

Step five: the facility

Where the operation happens matters as much as who performs it. Ask which hospital or facility, and what accreditation it holds.

For anything beyond a short local-anaesthetic procedure you want a licensed facility with an anaesthetist, resuscitation equipment, and a defined pathway for admission if something goes wrong. Longer combined procedures should be in a hospital rather than a day-surgery unit.

The specific question: if I develop a complication overnight, where am I, and who is looking after me?

Step six: the questions that reveal the most

1. How many of this specific procedure do you perform each year?
2. What is your complication rate for it, and what are the most common complications you see?
3. What is your revision policy? In what circumstances is a revision free, and what would I pay otherwise?
4. Who covers my aftercare, and for how long?
5. What would make you decline to operate on me?
6. Which hospital, and what accreditation does it hold?
7. How do I contact you or your team out of hours if I am worried?

Question five is the most revealing question in this article. Every good surgeon has criteria for declining a patient — unrealistic expectations, active smoking, unstable weight, an underlying medical issue, an inappropriate procedure request. A surgeon who says they would operate on anybody is either not listening or not exercising judgement.

Red flags

• Pressure to decide, and any time-limited discount on surgery.
• A price quoted before you have been examined.
• Being assigned a surgeon rather than choosing one.
• Reluctance to give a registration number.
• Guaranteed results. No honest surgeon guarantees an outcome.
• Dismissing your questions about complications, or answering them with reassurance rather than information.
• No clear plan for what happens if something goes wrong.

Any one of these is a reason to slow down. Two or more is a reason to walk away, whatever the price.