by Dr. Ryan Neinstein
10 Things to Ensure Your Liposuction Procedure is Safe
Have you ever looked in the mirror and thought to yourself “ I wish these stubborn love handles would just go away”? You are not alone and a lot of others think the exact same way.
If you’ve been working out and eat well consistently-yet still have the same stubborn love handles-you may have also thought about plastic surgery, but wondered if liposuction is dangerous.
I am Dr. Ryan Neinstein and I am a board certified plastic surgeon in New York City. In this blog I am going to answer the question to “is liposuction dangerous?”
I have created this blog to give people interested in plastic surgery in-depth, informative, and relevant information.
I would also love to hear from you, so please feel free to email me directly at drneinstein@neinsteinplasticsurgery.com with any questions.
Now, let’s dive into the safety and risks associated with liposuction.
Who gets Liposuction?
You may be thinking to yourself that liposuction is for people who do not eat well, do not exercise and are looking for the easy way out to looking thin. This is a common myth about liposuction and actually farthest from the truth.
In my Manhattan plastic surgery practice my patients are typically male and female between 35 and 55 years old. They are happy, healthy, positive people. Many are doctors, lawyers, ad executives and stay at home moms. The most common characteristics are that they eat well, exercise and want the most out of life. They want to enjoy travel, fashion, and intimacy. They use liposuction as a tool in their life to solve a specific problem that they know they can’t fix on their own with diet and exercise.
So going back to the question, “is liposuction dangerous”, at Neinstein Plastic Surgery we can say that since we are operating on healthy people outcomes are much safer!
Now that we have discussed who gets liposuction let’s talk about how liposuction is performed to better understand where liposuction can be dangerous, and how these dangers can be addressed for safe liposuction procedures.
10 Ways to Make Liposuction Safe
- Choose a board certified plastic surgeon. This will ensure safety training is woven into the DNA of the surgeon.
- Choose a surgeon who specializes in liposuction. For instance, the average surgeon does approximately 30 cases of liposuction per year, whereas I perform about 700 and my team well over 1000. There is nothing more dangerous than someone who knows just a little to be confident. As a world expert and authority I am obsessed with every detail, my patients travel from NYC, New Jersey, Connecticut, and the world for my obsessive compulsive obsession with liposuction.
- Choose a surgeon who uses small cannulas. Many surgeons want to finish the operation quickly and to do that will use large (think garden hose) liposuction cannulas; in my practice we use tiny (stir stick) size cannulas that make it basically impossible to cause lumps, bumps, deformities, or injuries.
- Choose a surgeon who other surgeons choose. Our world is filled with so much information and we are pressed for time so the paradox becomes how do we make the best informed decisions. One way to when choosing a liposuction surgeon is to see who other surgeons choose. You can ask your local plastic surgeon who they would choose and you can rest assured that my practice is filled with surgeons (plastic surgeons, cardiac surgeons, brain surgeons) from all over the world and their spouses.
- Choose a surgeon who has a state-of-the-art operating room. I like to give my patients who come to our Upper East Side Manhattan plastic surgery office a tour of our facilities. We have taken safety to the next level. From operating room to recovery room no stone was left unturned. Since we are fully inspected and accredited you can rest assured that the procedure is being performed with the highest safety standards.
- Choose a surgeon who has a full time central processing department technician. This is very detailed but one of the primary reasons why liposuction can be dangerous is that nurses or office staff are asked to clean instruments. This is like asking the pilot to fix the engine. It simply is not their role or their training. In a hospital there is a whole department for processing instrumentation as there is an art and science to it that requires full time vigilance. We hired Malcom from Lenox Hill hospital. He brings years of knowledge in how to care for, clean, sterilize, and maintain instruments so that there is no risk of infection which is a common reason for liposuction being dangerous.
- Choose a surgeon who has at least 5 full time nurses who worked in a large hospital surgical setting for at least 5 years. Again, liposuction is the safest procedure in plastic surgery when performed properly in a proper setting with the proper people. We are only as strong as our team. I have 3 full time nurse practioners with masters degrees who are able to actively participate in problem solving 24/7 for our patients before and after surgery. In the operating room and recovery room we only have the best nurses from the hospitals who are able to care for patients with the heightened awareness that only experience can bring.
- Choose a surgeon who is disciplined. I believe that waking up at 4:30am every day, reading, and exercising are the first three steps to a successful operation. Some people think discipline is limiting but I believe its actually liberating. When I show up for surgery my mind and body are warmed up and ready to go, I am in a position where I have complete control and I absolutely enjoy every aspect of the surgery.
- Choose a team not just a surgeon. Every month someone on our team chooses a book that inspires them. Our team has shared values and norms that transcend our culture. I know each and every one of us believes in patient care, respect, compassion at every touch point.
- Choose a surgeon you like! This may sound odd when asking yourself “is liposuction dangerous” but surgery is a big deal. For me and my team, patients are not transactional – we are committing to them as much as they are to us and that is a big commitment and a life long relationship.
I hope these 10 tips will be helpful to you as you consider liposuction surgery and weigh the risks and benefits of your procedure. I am confident that if you follow the guidance above, you will find that liposuction is not dangerous when performed by the right team of experts. As always, my door is always open if you would like to chat – just email me directly at drneinstein@neinsteinplasticsurgery.com.