By Dr John Newton, OAM
(FRACS, Specialist Plastic Surgeon)
“Firstly, if a patient looks at any promotional material that a plastic surgeon has, they should look to see if the Australasian Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons (ASAPS) is listed and the Australian Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) are listed. All specialist trained plastic surgeons within this country are members of the Australian Society of Plastic Surgeons and the vast majority of those are members of the Australasian Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons. So the second checkpoint would be to go to those two societies and ask, ‘Is the surgeon that I wish to consult a member of your group?’ They’re the two really basic things. Thirdly, if you have a specific and perhaps unusual problem, you can go to those societies and say, ‘This is my problem, I think it’s a little bit different. Who within your society is trained to and commonly deals with my problem?'”
