Nine questions to ask
- Who performs my procedure, start to finish? Not who greets you — who holds the cannula.
- What are you board certified in, and by whom? Any licensed physician can legally perform cosmetic procedures. Certification tells you what they trained for.
- How many of this specific procedure do you do per month? Volume in the exact procedure matters more than total years in practice.
- May I see before-and-afters of patients with my body type? Results on a different starting anatomy tell you nothing about yours.
- What plane / technique do you use, and why? A surgeon who can't explain their technique in plain language is a concern.
- What happens if I need a revision? Ask about policy and cost before you need it.
- What's the complete cost? Surgical fee, anesthesia, facility, garments, follow-up, labs. A quote missing three of those isn't a quote.
- What is my recovery, week by week? Vague answers here predict vague post-op support.
- What would make me a bad candidate? A surgeon who has no answer will operate on anyone.
Red flags
- Discount pressure. “This price is only good today” is a sales tactic, not medicine.
- You never meet the surgeon at consultation. If a consultant sells the plan and you meet the doctor on surgery day, leave.
- No one discusses risk. Every real procedure has risks, and you deserve to hear them.
- Guaranteed results or specific measurements promised. Anatomy sets limits; nobody can promise inches.
- No post-op plan. Contour is made in the operating room and protected in the twelve weeks after.
- Only heavily edited photos. Ask for standardized lighting, same angle, same distance.
What a good consultation feels like
You should leave knowing what's achievable for your anatomy, what it costs in total, what recovery demands from you, and what could go wrong. If you leave with a deposit and a vibe, you didn't have a consultation — you had a sales appointment.
And a good surgeon will sometimes tell you no. Being told to lose fifteen more pounds, or that you need skin excision rather than the liposuction you asked for, is a sign of someone protecting your result.