Giving Credit Where Accreditation is Due: Safe Surgery Facilities
Patients often spend enormous efforts to find the right surgeon, but may give little thought to where the surgery is to be done.
Complications can occur for a variety of reasons, and whenever there is a high-profile disaster, such as the death of rapper Kanye West's mother Donda last year, legislators and regulators clamor to show that they are on top of the situation.
Several states have passed laws requiring licensure of ambulatory surgery centers, my state of Washington being among the most recent to do so. California has been trying to enact a requirement that all plastic surgery patients undergo a physical exam prior to surgery, in view of the fact that Donda West apparently had a heart condition that should have been given consideration as to whether and where to have her surgery.
But plastic surgeons have been placing safety front and center for years. More than a decade ago the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) passed a requirement that all office-based surgery facilities used by its members be fully accredited. These accreditations are independent and of course mandate that patients undergo an appropriate pre-operative workup, including a physical exam. Full safety training and equipment are needed to maintain good standing as well.
With the world of cosmetic medicine and surgery expanding, not everyone doing facelifts and liposuction is a plastic surgeon, and so not subject to ASPS guidelines.
So the smart consumer should be armed with several questions, first of which is whether or not the surgical facility is independently accredited. Second, the doctor should have hospital privileges to do the specific procedure being planned; this means that an outside committee has reviewed their training and qualifications. And third, don't conceal anything in your health history from your plastic surgeon.
Surgery and anesthesia are safer than ever, but only if everyone is playing by the rules.